No sooner do SAP employees want to establish a works council, than the SAP founder questions the company's headquarters in Walldorf:
Two days before a works meeting is held at SAP on Thursday with the aim of electing a works council, company founder Dietmar Hopp intensifies his warnings: The installation of a works council is a "backdoor for IG Metall", said Hopp, who rejects the rigid ideas of the union officials regarding working hours: "If someone has to ask the union whether I can call California at eleven o'clock tonight, then good night beautiful SAP", Hopp illustrated his concerns to Handelsblatt.com – "in the worst case" Walldorf as the location of the corporate headquarters is in danger, said the longtime chairman of the supervisory board, who withdrew from the committee altogether almost a year ago.
Exactly. Companies with a works council are not allowed to call abroad. With such pitiful babbling from company bosses and managers, I really wonder what makes these flatheads so special that they have to rake in so much money? Competence - whether professional (because labor law belongs to the professional field of a manager for me) or human, the founder of SAP has quite simply dropped his pants here, and what comes to light is simply just an ass.
Also shocking is the incitement against the unions from the alleged employee representatives - if you read through their outpourings, you are not surprised that the employees at SAP now want a works council. At least they have a real chance that someone is sitting there who actually represents the employees and not just his supervisory board position ...
Addendum: how well FUD works can be seen in the result. And how the alleged business papers slap their thighs with joy. Too bad for the employees of SAP - because sooner or later they will probably learn the hard way how stupid the idea is to waive their co-determination rights. But the polemic that a works council would only be controlled by the union (which is ridiculous, because it still depends on the elected works council members what they do) and that a works council allegedly does not fit the corporate culture has probably worked better than common sense. It is, however, typical daydreaming of employees in the IT industry, it was the same 20 years ago in the computer center. They had to learn it later too ...