Item — HN Reader

So, I currently work in Germany, maybe that’s why, but in my personal experience employers are very strict with overtime and only allow it when there is a justification (e.g: big project to get done at the end of the month). I guess because of strict regulations, but you also have the fact that having tired employees results in more sick days used, a higher error rate and mood swings. To be fair, even knowing this people (including myself) do some overtime.

Working more is a short term solution to increase the productivity of a team, but on the long term the benefits of doing so aren’t that obvious.

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I have recently moved from France to the US.

Some of it is probably due to startup culture but people seem to work at insane hours.

Lots of commits during the night or the weekend, or even now during the Christmas break.

In general, the culture in the US seems way more pro employers and companies and anti-employees and consumers.

Us Americans solved that problem by making health care unaffordable and systematically reducing and eliminating sick/vacation pay.

If Americans were as physically fit as they were 50 years ago, would healthcare still be expensive?

Probably not as expensive, but still much more expensive than it need be.

We've got a bunch of perverse incentives where it's cheaper for the patient to choose the option that's more expensive for the payer. Straightening those out would be a small first step, but complexities of the system and incumbent powers have made it pretty difficult.

Sure. Why don't I hear more about Americans doing medical tourism then? Is there some kind of information asymmetry, because it sounds to me as if there ought to be a lot of money to be saved if the sick people knew where they could purchase the medicine they require.

I can sympathize with this because I remember needing a medical procedure that I was forced to travel to a different country to solve, it wasn't even about the money but a case where I the patient was given poor information and then ignored, I actually took the doctor to the board over it in the end, and they ultimately provided a correct solution but it was easier in the end just to travel abroad to fix it.

That's mainly because the unions have some power in Germany. Without them German employers would also happily have people work overtime.

It is the people getting together that gives the unions that power in first place.

Law is meaningless if workers don't make it happen.

My native Norway is much like Germany with respect to unions and speaking with my American side of the family, and following American news I get the strong impression that laws protecting people's right to unionize are VERY WEAK in the US.

They are also designed in ways which makes people end up resenting unions. I register a lot of union hatred in the US which simply doesn't exist in Norway. Part of the reason seems to be from how unions function in the US.

You are either a union shop or you are not. People are forced to join the union or they are forced to not join it. People don't like being made to do things. In Norway it has always been free choice to join a union. There is no such thing as a "union shop".

Unions in the US also don't seem to hold much power except in its ability to sabotage the company, and so that seems to be what they do. In Germany and Norway unions are more like partners with management. They are on the company boards. They can't be ignored as easily as in the US. To be heard in the US, it seems like unions have to cause trouble. I think this creates a very unhealthy union environment and creates a bad reputation for unions.

Unions in Norway form hierarchies so that you huge national unions which together with representatives for employers negotiate work life in Norway on regular basis.

The other part I think is that Norway and Germany has quite extensive welfare systems, so unions are not as actively protecting particular jobs as they are trying to protect people. Losing your job in Norway or Germany is not the same catastrophe as in the US. So people are more accepting towards it. Instead what people want to see is things like job training and aid to help you get a new job.

Thanks for the reply.

My point is that law is only part of the equation, people need to fight for keeping it relevant.

I never said it was easy to do so.

Agree, I just didn't want to put all the blame on American workers for the low unionization rate. I think they have much harder job than their peers in Norway and Germany.

Forming a union is never easy, even in Norway.

True. However, German law is definitely friendlier to labor than US law for example.

Ah, an enlightened society. As a US resident, I hope to live in one of those someday. Here I'm just a resource like any farm animal.

Germany has maintained a strict no wage growth policy for decades now however to push exports, potentially contributing to the stagnation of the euro zone.

Not sure why the parent post is being downvoted: https://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21724810-country-save...

> Underlying Germany’s surplus is a decades-old accord between business and unions in favour of wage restraint to keep export industries competitive. Such moderation served Germany’s export-led economy well through its postwar recovery and beyond. It is an instinct that helps explain Germany’s transformation since the late 1990s from Europe’s sick man to today’s muscle-bound champion.

Likely because i pegged the euro issue on Germany rather than the PIIGS.

The Euro is also a big part of this. It’s undervalued compared to Germany’s economy and inflation rate (meaning cheaper and more competitive exports), but overpriced compared to the countries with trade deficits (PIGS, France, etc). This actually leads to internal devaluation of their economies (and unemployment) to achieve what would normally just be a bit weaker exchange rate.

This isn’t a problem for the US states sharing a currency because they have the federal budget spending balances most of this out.

It is still an issue. In places like Canada they have equalization payments that boost the poor regions from the richer regions.