As a European I'm curious which unions and industries are you talking about? I've been working tech or tech-adjacent jobs my entire life here and I've never been in a union nor do I know any friends (developers / designers) that are in a union. And I'm going to conferences and meetups on a regular. I'm not saying unions don't exist (probably more so in certain industries), but for devs to be in a union in Europe? Never heard of it.
"Betriebsrat" sounds German to me, so possibly Germany?
And definitely Sweden. Many (most?) of my software engineer colleagues are members of either the engineering-specific "Sveriges Ingenjörer" or generic white-collar "Unionen" union.
> “Betriebsrat" sounds German to me, so possibly Germany?
I am in Germany and I never heard of any union for Devs, not even large firms having any specific ones for Devs. My colleagues frequently discuss about unionizing but there are huge pay disparity hence most often it is hard to get everyone on board sadly.
Most unions are intended for craftsmen, minijobs, public transports and such. There are some small employers covered by famous IG Metall tariff but that is not the norm. I know that likes of Airbus has some kind of union that covers most of the departments and hence pays insane salary but that is something I heard from friends of people who work there, so I can’t assure accuracy.
There might be unions but that is not the norm except some dinosaurs.
It’s very common in Norway. Many IT people are member of NITO (Norwegian Society of Engineers and Technologists) or Tekna (Norwegian Society of Graduate Technical and Scientific Professionals).
Yeah, and Tekna a few years back was one of those pushing to get rid of the (now illegal) anti-competition contracts all employers made you sign. So while most people don't see them day-to-day (as in, they don't set tariffs and often don't negotiate your salary), they still influence a lot. And the salary statistics is very useful in leveling the playing field and getting what you're worth.
And the union deals on insurances, mortgage etc. saves me much more money each year than the union fee.
Dont you just love it when people speak of their own little bubble as if it was an entire continent? I never met anyone in “Europe” working in tech part of a union.
Unions in Germany aren't really split up by profession, but by industry. So if you e.g. work in the car or manufacturing industry, there's a good chance that most workers in your company are part of "IG Metall", which is the biggest union in Germany. And that union then negotiates the salary & working conditions for every normal employee, even if you aren't part of the union. So if you ever met a developer from Siemens, Mercedes, BMW, Bosch, etc. they are probably enjoying the benefits of a union.
As you said, they are only under that umbrella because of the sector. Outside of those companies, there's basically no unions at all in IT/Mostly-IT companies.
Interesting. I think that makes a lot more sense for the heavy industries in Germany. I've been working for many years across the border in the Netherlands (South Holland specifically) where there's a lot of tech/design companies and studios and I just haven't come across anyone in a union or even heard of people being in a union.
I worked in tech (DAX company) in Germany for almost a decade and we were unionized.
I'd say the union was one of the main reasons why we didn't have mass layoffs when the company was in a hard spot. Instead more acceptable options like part-time and voluntary resignation with exit packages were negotiated and still met similar cost saving goals.
In small shops you probably won't have a union but they don't tend to hire&fire like the big multinationals.
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