(Betriebs-) Rats

It's time to sign the new contract with $MegaCorp. The problem is certain suckage in comparison with my $BigCorp contract, mainly concerning money. I'm taking a pay cut because the Works Council (Betriebsrat) made a decision concerning our pay: everybody coming in from $BigCorp should be handled in an equitable manner.

Communist fuckwits.

Back in the $BigCorp days a few of our fuck-ups led by one with a vendetta and a current court case against the company tried to use German laws to force a Betriebsrat on us. The company had to pick up the full tab for all costs of their attempts to thwart managerial decisions and have a say in how things are handled.

The three clowns went about it in a Little Rascals manner, though much less organised and prepared. I killed their first called meeting within ten minutes by pointing out that they'd failed to provide translations for me which the law requires.

They got better and played a lot of games, wasting time and costing the company thousands. In the end we managed to kill it, and a good thing that was for me. German Works Councils don't give a damn about ability, merit or competency. Whether it's to do with cuts or pay raises, they only look at the la-di-da social impact and would in a heartbeat let single, expert-in-multiple-areas me go in order to keep Mr Incompetent employed based solely on his inability to stop impregnating his wife, especially if he'd worked for the company a single day longer than me.

Management can't do much about it. It's the law, and once there's a Council in place you can't get rid of it. I've yet to hear a single thing that a Betriebsrat does which isn't in some way related to the protection of the incompetent and lazy. They prevent companies from making hard business decisions which are in the interest of the company.

Ten percent of my income under the old contract was based on my performance and would be doled out in a lump sum a couple months into the new year after an appraisal. I actually managed to exceed 100% once and I never fell below 92%. There were others only getting 30-40%.

$MegaCorp doesn't do the 90-10 pay and I rather doubt that basing pay increases even partially on merit can make it past the Council. But how to deal with the $BigCorp salaries in a $MegaCorp world?

Just give everyone 100% of that 10% since that's the rate each person was ostensibly hired at?

No.

Give each person the average percentage received in merit-based pay over the past three years so that a hard worker would get the 90% he'd been getting and the fuck-up would get 40%?

No.

The Works Council decided that everyone should be treated equally: everyone gets the overall average which was paid out.

The results of this ostensibly "fair" decision mean the monkeys who busted their balls over the past few years take a pay cut while the lazy fuck-ups who managed not to get shitcanned got a raise.

Fuckwits.

x-posted to HuSi with a poll