After so many people have cried to me that SAP has such a great corporate philosophy that is incompatible with works councils, there is now a clear statement from the company management:
SAP would then see the possibility of establishing research laboratories in Latin America or Eastern Europe, and of intensifying the competition between the ten laboratories currently existing worldwide. One would then be global enough, but nevertheless more than half of the world's development capacities would still be concentrated in Walldorf.
Yeah, people, keep telling yourselves you don't need a works council. Dreamers ...