QandO

August 19, 2004

Should we go or should we stay?
Posted by Dale Franks

German blogger David Kaspar notes that ver.di, Germany's largest service-sector union is upset at the idea that US troops will go home from Germany, because it will cause many of their members to lose their jobs.

He points to a press release from ver.di. What caught me was this phrase from Christian Zahn, from ver.di's national office (It's in German but I'll translate it. More or less.), saying that the German government can't leave these poor devils in the lurch:

Die Beschäftigten hätten jahrzehntelang einen wichtigen Beitrag für die äußere Sicherheit Deutschlands geleistet und ein Recht darauf, einen Teil dieser Dividende zurück zu bekommen.

Translation: These employees would have made an important contribution to Germany's national security for many decades, and they have a right to get a part of this dividend back.

I just love the sense of entitlement that expresses. "Hey, we might've had jobs for life. If we don't, somebody's gotta pay. "Cause we got a right to part of that money we would've made."

And that attitude, my friends, is why Germany has some of the highest unit labor costs in the world.

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