In under two years since setting up their union, 1,300 workers workers at Microsoft in the Czech Republic have won a landmark collective bargaining agreement.
Sadly they can, there is no law stopping a company from shutting down offices. They’ll have to pay people who are laid off a few months’ salary with no work performed but it might be a better deal to MS compared to paying higher wages forever.
They’d have to effectively close down the Czech branch of the company.
There used to be shenanigans where an owner would shut down one company and continue as another but goverment labor watchdogs have gotten wise to such methods. And it would be ridiculously overt for a corporation like Microsoft especially under these circumstances when they’re in the full spotlight.
No, they’ll try to “lobby” the politicians as usual and push for union-unfriendly legislation, try to limit union applicability to certain industry branches, and if all else fails pull out of Czech Republic and hope the rest of Eastern Europe doesn’t follow suit.
that means also potentially stop selling their product in the country. Most big tech companies operate in open violation of GDPR and they are not held accountable only for political reasons. If the government has enough pressure to act, they might force Microsoft to bargain with a lot of leverage on the table. 1300 specialized jobs in Czech are no little business.
it’s not the USA. You can’t just do that. There are workers’ protections against stuff like this.
Sadly they can, there is no law stopping a company from shutting down offices. They’ll have to pay people who are laid off a few months’ salary with no work performed but it might be a better deal to MS compared to paying higher wages forever.
Yeah but the public sector contracts. I think MS will be happy to eat the costs and keep those contracts
They’d have to effectively close down the Czech branch of the company.
There used to be shenanigans where an owner would shut down one company and continue as another but goverment labor watchdogs have gotten wise to such methods. And it would be ridiculously overt for a corporation like Microsoft especially under these circumstances when they’re in the full spotlight.
No, they’ll try to “lobby” the politicians as usual and push for union-unfriendly legislation, try to limit union applicability to certain industry branches, and if all else fails pull out of Czech Republic and hope the rest of Eastern Europe doesn’t follow suit.
They’d do just that. Then they’d employ ‘third parties’ (read: ‘shell companies’) that would do their biddings. That’s how its been done.
Which is why, hopefully, this union will progress to being a national IT union and not remain a strictly one-time Microsoft thing.
Yeah, I think that’s basically what they’re going to do.
that means also potentially stop selling their product in the country. Most big tech companies operate in open violation of GDPR and they are not held accountable only for political reasons. If the government has enough pressure to act, they might force Microsoft to bargain with a lot of leverage on the table. 1300 specialized jobs in Czech are no little business.