Labor Council at Munich Apple Store Takes Over Manager's Office

[ogee]

Originally Posted by rikscha

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A405 Safari/7534.48.3)



This is illegal in Germany as well of course. Depending on how they asked I would have made a fuss out of it. They probably asked you nicely. Nothing against friendly asking, in the end you should have asked first.

I disagree. Your on private property and the owner of the property can enforce a no photography policy, just like he can tell you to leave or refuse you entry.

[arian19]

WTF, a door sign with a iPad... is obviously excessive.

[dynamojoe]

Originally Posted by arian19

WTF, a door sign with a iPad... is obviously excessive.

On the upside, maybe one can play Angry Birds while waiting outside.

[rikscha]

Originally Posted by ogee

I disagree. Your on private property and the owner of the property can enforce a no photography policy, just like he can tell you to leave or refuse you entry.

nothing to disagree here. He can't force you to delete the photo, he would have to sue you in the extreme case to have it deleted. You are of course right, you can't take the picture in the first place without asking for permission but that is exactly what I said in my post before.

[kurosov]

Originally Posted by charlituna

Apple's stores are considered "private property" (aka publicly accessible but privately controlled) for such matters and so the 'no photography in the store' is totally a legit rule in the US. As would be one against taking photos in the stores employee only area. I'm betting that rule is allowed in Germany as well so I hope there were no security cameras to show who took the photo or council or not, they might have just fired themselves.

Yet once you have taken a photograph it becomes your property. In the US, UK and the EU it is illegal for security staff to force you to delete a photograph. The most they can do is to ask you to stop taking them.

On any private property, if there are no photography allowed signs in clear view or if a representative of the owner of the property asks you to stop doing so then to continue to do so is classed as trespassing.

Of course, since a certain date these rules are a bit blurred on government properties.

[Mad-B-One]

... the "Betriebsrat" is not a union. It is a - under certain circumstances mandatory - part of a company's structure for grievance processes, negotiation between management and workers, etc. There is already a very powerful union on this sector called ver.di (yes, there is a dot in between - thats historical). That office does not have to be dedicated to the sole purpose of the employees' council though.

Did I mention that whoever gets elected into this office cannot be fired (of course, limitations apply)? Also, if someone else gets elected for that office, they have to be able to go back to their old job. Same is true for people holding public offices such as city councilmen etc. Most companies do not run into any problems with that. I doubt that Apple does. It is just business as usual in Germany. There is no conspiracy against the company, just following local law. Same thing with giving the expecting parent time to become a parent - which means unpaid leave for up to a year with job-back warranty after that. Yes, parent. Not mother only. They now can split that between mother and father.

[vertgo]

I'd like to know if this happens all over germany if there will be a decrease in the quality of service or an increase in prices for products there.

That's usually what I suspect will happen with any kind of unionization, though for some reason I doubt that german unions would be as likely to be as corrupt as american ones ("Anyone who speaks german can't be bad."). Their laws are a lot more thought thorough and their government is based on the idea of transparency.

Here, unions and corporations seem more likely to be in collusion with the government behind closed doors, so policies and public money are misdirected against the good of the general population.

[Ugg]

Originally Posted by vertgo

I'd like to know if this happens all over germany if there will be a decrease in the quality of service or an increase in prices for products there.

That's usually what I suspect will happen with any kind of unionization, though for some reason I doubt that german unions would be as likely to be as corrupt as american ones ("Anyone who speaks german can't be bad."). Their laws are a lot more thought thorough and their government is based on the idea of transparency.

Here, unions and corporations seem more likely to be in collusion with the government behind closed doors, so policies and public money are misdirected against the good of the general population.

It already happens all over Germany, it's been law for a few decades now. German customer service isn't the same as American customer service but that' s really a cultural matter more than an effect of unions.

[ovrlrd]

Originally Posted by arian19

WTF, a door sign with a iPad... is obviously excessive.

Not really, unless you haven't worked in an office before. Sure it doesn't need to be in front of every door, but there are many cases where it can be used to show availability (in a meeting, out to lunch, etc). In the case of an iPad it could be used to quickly show someones schedule as well to see when they are available.

Better yet, use it for a conference room so people can tell when the next time they can schedule a meeting would be.

Of course all of it would tie into the company's calendar server so it's not like people couldn't get that data elsewhere, but immediate information in front of you is always more powerful than information you have to look up elsewhere.

[cgmpowers]

Originally Posted by rmwebs

Are they using an iPad as a door sign there Cant help thinking that it'll have some major screen burn. My iPad 1 was showing a ghosted safari after only 2 years of light use.

I just can't help but thinking an iPad as a door sign is kind of a waste of a technology; come on did they make it to serve the only purpose of BEING A SIGN??

Somewhere someone's wasting their technology...

[pancakedrawer]

Originally Posted by charlituna

Apple's stores are considered "private property" (aka publicly accessible but privately controlled) for such matters and so the 'no photography in the store' is totally a legit rule in the US. As would be one against taking photos in the stores employee only area. I'm betting that rule is allowed in Germany as well so I hope there were no security cameras to show who took the photo or council or not, they might have just fired themselves.

Photography might not be allowed but I'm saying it's illegal to be forced to delete the photo.

[Ciclismo]

Originally Posted by pancakedrawer

Photography might not be allowed but I'm saying it's illegal to be forced to delete the photo.

It is indeed illegal to be forced either by physical means or coercion, but deleting it when asked can save you a lot of hassle. If you refuse to delete a picture, the staff have the right to detain you until the police arrive (you are on private property after all), and the plod will seize your camera and anything related until an investigation and possible court case are completed. You'll have to wait several months until you get your stuff back, along with a pretty hefty legal bill (unless you have Rechtschützversicherung).

[gnasher729]

Originally Posted by Mad-B-One

By the way, these regulations brought down company ventures like WalMart who tried to push their ideology into a German substity and failed after class action law suits for violating privacy laws.

Walmart had many problems in Germany. It started with buying up a small chain of stores to get started, then treating all the existing store managers like crap so that everyone left. Result: Bringing in management from the USA, who mostly didn't speak German (doesn't go down well in Germany), knew nothing, and thought they knew everything (doesn't go down well at all in Germany, and probably nowhere else).

Then it continued with suppliers. Were Walmart was used to just going into a suppliers plant and looking at whatever they wanted to look at, in Germany they were just told to ******* off. Then it was an open secret that if a supplier made any special deals with Walmart, that supplier would find it a lot harder to sell to any other supermarket.

In the end, they failed because the goods weren't as good as elsewhere, and they weren't cheaper either. Well, worker relationships didn't help. It's not just about unions.

[Ugg]

Originally Posted by gnasher729

Walmart had many problems in Germany. It started with buying up a small chain of stores to get started, then treating all the existing store managers like crap so that everyone left. Result: Bringing in management from the USA, who mostly didn't speak German (doesn't go down well in Germany), knew nothing, and thought they knew everything (doesn't go down well at all in Germany, and probably nowhere else).

Then it continued with suppliers. Were Walmart was used to just going into a suppliers plant and looking at whatever they wanted to look at, in Germany they were just told to ******* off. Then it was an open secret that if a supplier made any special deals with Walmart, that supplier would find it a lot harder to sell to any other supermarket.

In the end, they failed because the goods weren't as good as elsewhere, and they weren't cheaper either. Well, worker relationships didn't help. It's not just about unions.

Wow, I didn't realize that walmart had been so ham fisted. Not having managers who speak German seems insane! What were they thinking? The same with the attitude for the suppliers.

It's really pathetic they didn't do their homework.

[Laird Knox]

Originally Posted by mikefla

Sounds like your company has money to spend. Are they hiring? I'm looking for a job

They built the building before we went into a few rounds of layoffs. Go figure.

[Aussieiphone]

I love how socially aware/community minded Europe is.

Australia (as a previous resident there perspective) remains somewhat a combination of european/slash american workplace ideology (thankfully more the former then the latter).

It really is a shame how capitalistic (greedy) the US has become in terms of wealth creation being the dominant driving factor of so many individuals in the community - not just my sentiments, but from those who fought WWII and the many other wars, have said to me in conversation, about how the country is the way it's become is not the one they fought for.

be nice if people were cool and stop power tripping...

[gnasher729]

Originally Posted by Ugg

Wow, I didn't realize that walmart had been so ham fisted. Not having managers who speak German seems insane! What were they thinking? The same with the attitude for the suppliers.

It's really pathetic they didn't do their homework.

They didn't start with American managers. They bought a small supermarket chain in Germany, complete with employees and managers. An example of what they did was two managers going on a business trip, and Walmart insisted on them sharing a hotel room to save money. Just an example, but you can imagine that everyone tried to get out as quick as they could.

In the USA, Walmart does lots of things that they can only do because they have power. Their whole strategy is based on making suppliers depend on Walmart to a degree that they have to meet any demands or risk bankruptcy (and then they die a slow death anyway because Walmart's demands go up and up and up). Everybody in the business knows that. Even everybody in the business in Germany knows that. Since they started without power, and their strategy was known, everybody worked together to never let them get close to power.