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Comment by dagw | Hacker News Reader

It's going to be interesting to see how it plays out. These sorts of conditions are completely normal in the US. If they are successful at introducing this sort US work culture into Germany I can see many other US tech company will follow suit, and the European tech companies following.

What's the union situation like in Germany? Will they fight it?

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I do not see why it would need unions to fight that. It's just not legal here. It is four weeks minimum period of notice and it increases the longer an employee works for the same employer, up to seven month for twenty years of job tenure. Two weeks during the first six month of new employees.

Other agreements can be made but only if it improves the situation of the employee.

German: https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/bgb/__622.html

Couldn't Tesla agreed to pay out 4 weeks of salary instead.

Four weeks is the legal minimum if you've worked at a German company for two years. Plus the notice period, which is often three months for software developers.

Such things are possible if both sides agree on an annulment contract. Tesla themselves could not do that on their own. (The employee should better be aware that they still forfeit unemployment benefits if they do not announce their leaving of a job to the unemployment office in advance.)

No union needed, it's not legal. Getting around the statutory notice period isn't possible, unless the employment is on a temporary basis not exceeding three months. If they had no more than 20 employees, they could limit the notice period to one month, but that's it.

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