Pitfalls When Doing Business Abroad

Pitfalls When Doing Business Abroad

Posts 11-15 of 15
  • Johannes H. Schmiedt
    Johannes H. Schmiedt
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    Re^6: Sweden: "Toys-r-us", Labor union dispute
    Dear Sam,

    The core dilemma in the Western "old" Europe is the old agreement in the
    states, of mass industry providing the jobs, and the state with the labor. This
    social agreement is invalidated today.     ... I fully agree with this point of view. However, this is just part of the problem. In most of continential Europe people are much less "independent" then in anglo-american areas. There is still quite some belief that "the state" is taking care of you. The good news is that an increasing number of people thinks more open-minded and that will eventually change things around. It may take a while, though!

    Small-to-Medium size companies. And a new social agreement with states.
    Not perhaps that much for providing labor, but providing necessary conditions
    for these SMEs to become succesful.     ... ;-) I always get an absolute "kick" out of political advertisements before elections that some party promises to create jobs. What a lie! No political party can create jobs. However, they can provide the required infra-structure and conditions (i.e. tax system, cost of labor, etc...) Awareness is the issue. People need to understand the difference.

    "A new deal of Europe" - 100 years after example from US? ... amazingly enough, though, a lot of the underlying pholosophies of the success story of the U.S. in recent decades have their roots in "continential Europe." I.e. F.A. Hayek, and serveral others. The theories developped by such people was put in practice in the U.S. - with significant success, I might add. It will never cease to amaze me, why continential Europa was surprised about the success in the U.S. (at times even jealous.) Yet, never tried to figure out the reasons. It really looks like it takes a full century to finally believe in some theories which initiated in continental Europe and were proven right in the U.S. ;-)

    With best wishes from Austria,

    Hannes....
    This post was modified on 16 Feb 2006 at 02:50 pm.
    • 16 Feb 2006, 2:47 pm
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    ---
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    Re^9: Sweden: "Toys-r-us", Labor union dispute
    Sam good point, support SME. EU does only support SME and farms on those no comments. I work only with SME more of small business bigger the balance, old/ new Europe I do not like those labels. The point is to unite and not to build one new or old wall let leave those dualistic perceptions to Marx and Lenin they did enough of s..it
    In regards of Scandinavian model Finland is better example and stats are not that bad or am I wrong : )
    any way peace, pace and may God bless SME's in Europe
    This post was modified on 16 Feb 2006 at 11:30 pm.
    • 16 Feb 2006, 11:28 pm
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    Anders Moller
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    Re^8: Sweden: "Toys-r-us", Labor union dispute
    Hi all,

    Unfortunately for Sweden, I can confirm Sam’s numbers. I’ve heard the figure that circa 1 million aged 20-65 yrs are not working (due to all kinds of reasons). This should correspond to about 20%.
    • 18 Feb 2006, 4:30 pm
  • Thomas Jansson
    Thomas Jansson
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    Re^6: Sweden: "Toys-r-us", Labor union dispute - 20% unemployment?

    Some comments about the numbers concerning the unemployment statistics in Sweden. The political goal (in Sweden) of having people working in the age btw 20 - 64 is 80%, not 100%. The reason is that e.g. all university students are counted, and they are not considered as working people. The actual ratio of employment in this category is around 77%.

    Well, that is in any way a bad number... the enterprise association in Sweden has said that it takes around 150 000 new jobs to reach the goal, and that won't be done that easily, I'm afraid...

    Around one year ago a researcher at LO (Landsorganisationen), the labour union for workers, claimed that the unemploymnet is around 20 % instead of 7%, and the socialistic establishment was shaken... in fact this report was never accepted by the board of LO, and the researcher left his job.

    The claim he did was based on the fact that in Sweden, a lot of unemployed people have been "classified" as early-retirement caused of disability... a way for the goverment to 1) "fix the numbers" 2) save money - an early-retirement person get around 65 % of the salary, compared with 80 %. Of course, there are many ways to "fix the numbers", but what this reseacher had courage to say was "that the king have no clothes..." To solve the problem, you need to know about, not to look away...

    So, basically, yes we have around 20 % unemployment in Sweden. A number way to high...
    • 09 Mar 2006, 11:21 am
  • Thomas Jansson
    Thomas Jansson
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    Re^7: Sweden: "Toys-r-us", Labor union dispute - another dispute
    Well, there have been some discusions about labur contracts in Sweden. Recently, a building company from one of the baltic states was building (I think) a school using personal that were not under the general agreement btw labour union association and the enterprise association. So somewhat similair with the original case of this tread...

    Of course, a conflict... with blockade, sympathy strikes of other unions and so on...the baltic company went down caused of this. Now, the case is court, and even the EU-commissionary had comments about the "swedish way" of handeling labour contracting. The question is still not yet closed... but if for example the EU doesn't accept the "swedish way" it is going to be political consequences... the goverment will defend this way of agreement btw labour and companies to a very high price...

    As you understand this kind of agreement is hot political question in/for Sweden. But I think there will be some kind of change over time. The reason is the following: a change of the the structure of the labour unions in Sweden.

    Today there are 3 main organizations, LO ( workers) , TCO (salaried employees) and SACO( academics). All organizations favour the "swedish way", but the "agreement document" looks a bit different btw them. Traditionally LO, was the biggest, the most important ( their chairman is always a member of the social democratic party highest descion part, VU ). Recently number shows that LO is not that big anymore, in fact TCO ans SACO are now bigger... and their point of view concerning labour agreements are "somewhat less" collective.
    • 09 Mar 2006, 11:47 am