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Comment by missedthecue | Hacker News Reader

That makes about as much sense to me as putting CEOs on the board of unions.

It creates trust.

Basically, instead of having unions/employees explain in conspiratorial tones why management is evil, they see what's happening for real. It's a lot harder to say 'evil board' when you have a seat there and are (for example) facing massive losses - your job then becomes to build a collective, satisfactory solution rather than just stay in the opposition and complain. Because employees trust the board, they will also accept changes, sometimes hard ones.

The difference might be that workers have an interest in maintaining the business so they still have well paid jobs while CEOs do not necessarily have an interest in unions' well-being.

Many CEOs don't even have an interest in the company's well being (in the long run at at least)

The big German companies invite the unions in because they are a source of innovation too. And managing the connection between the people who actually build the cars and the people who design/plan them is important.

The designers are also unionized

big german companies do it because they are required to by law.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worker_representation_on_corpo...

This is interesting. I sat next to a German manager of DaimlerChrysler (which really dates me, I know) on a flight. He agreed with the idea of worker unions being inside the company and having a seat at the table. He also disliked the practice of building cars "offshore" because, he said "the knowledge of building the car leaves the country".

Nonetheless, they don't let them on the board out of any self interest aside from following the law.

I actually see no problem with that. If the employees have a mechanism to keep management in check, there should be a way of management keeping employees in check. As long as there's a way to make sure everyone is on the same page, and there's harmony on and also between every level of the company, that's fine in my book.

> there should be a way of management keeping employees in check

You mean like the power to hire and fire them, tell them what to do, and how much they get paid?

CEOs and upper management aren't actually forbidden to unionize ;)

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