What happen in France, Germany or Israel where they have unions?
3 replies (most recent on top)
Chinese whispers ;)
Any layoff in Germany will have to go through a Works Council committee (PEM - Personelle Einzelmaßnahmen, something like "individual personnel measure"). And if the works council members have any doubt that the layoff is a voluntary one, they could and would intervene.
Therefore, if your mate's mates are gone, it would probably be because a) they took the (rather large amount of) money voluntarily, or b) they have been reorganised as a team, via something called a "box move" in Germany.
It is simply not true that no one in Germany got laid off. My mate's German mates are already gone.
In Germany, there are no forced layoffs. There is a voluntary early retirement program for people 55 and older. Also, for other people, there is a voluntary severance package available based on the number of years at SAP. This package is also very attractive. However, because it is purely voluntary on the part of the employee, the same is true on the side of the employer. People in development roles, for example, cannot apply for the severance package, because SAP wants to retain them. Hence, this "voluntary" clause cuts in both ways.
Should SAP try to force out employees in Germany, the labour courts would laugh them out of the courtroom. WIth a margin like the one SAP earns, they would require SAP to retrain the people whose roles disappear to fill other, needed roles. And should there ever be hard times ahead, and redundancies need to happen, the length of service to SAP and the social situation of employees (do they need to look after children, elder parents, ...) would need to be taken into consideration.
Overall, it is very unattractive to try to sack people in Germany if there is the possibility to reorganise them into new roles.