Tag Archives: Germany

VW: When management is the vanguard of the proletariat

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volkswagenBeen a busy month for me so I haven’t had a chance to give the story due diligence, but if you didn’t hear: the German automaker Volkswagen’s U.S. division attempted to unionize their own workers in Tennessee.

This is unusual for a number of reasons, as I’ll get to in a moment, but it’s particularly significant coming in Tennessee, a state that has become home to a lot of foreign car manufacturers’ American branches and is a so-called “Right to Work” state. “Right to Work” laws are designed discourage unionization by changing how worker votes occur and allowing management to intimidate or pressure workers into voting against forming a union, i.e. giving workers the “right” to work outside of union (because every American must have the right to be their own David against the corporate Goliath in contract negotiations… I guess?).

So anyway, if VW employees unionize, it will automatically put pressure on Tennessee’s other foreign-based carmakers to raise wages somewhat to remain competitive and retain their workers, even if they remain non-unionized (past studies have demonstrated this effect pretty clearly), and it will probably encourage unionization drives elsewhere.
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Edison Rising: The Return of Direct Current

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For all the complaining about what a burden the German government’s energiewende policy (total denuclearization of the country’s power generation) is, we’re already seeing long-term benefits of forcing the power industry’s hand. Without having been pressed into getting creative, German engineers might have indefinitely put off critical research in power grid transmission upgrades, which are needed all over the world. This research & testing is already showing some of the improvement theories work in practice — and expand total grid capacity dramatically. Everyone stands to gain from this R&D.

 

Related News Clipping (Economist.com):

The decision, taken in 2011, to close down Germany’s nuclear power stations risks leaving parts of the country with insufficient electricity. This will have to be brought in from elsewhere. But to do that seems, on the face of things, to require the building of new transmission lines, which will be unpopular with those they pass by. One alternative is to make better use of existing lines.

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