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Advice for US entrepreneurs who move to Europe

english.martinvarsavsky.net

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Re: Advice for US entrepreneurs who move to Europe

#91

Post by avar »

martinvars wrote: post #74

I stand by my comment that I could not start a company in the garage of my father in law in Mulheim an der Ruhr. Many of those commenting here should see how companies get started in USA. And yes kudos to Germany for its changes in recent years. Other European countries should follow its lead. But lets remember one thing, a deregulated work environment in USA has led to engineers getting paid 2 or 3 times as much and…

It's led to engineers getting paid more, but it's also arguably had negative effects on the people most of those European laws were meant to protect.

Re: Advice for US entrepreneurs who move to Europe

#92

Post by Daniel_Newby »

Svip wrote: post #10
Svip wrote: post #6

I am not a fan of how he uses 'Europe' when he often means Spain and France. He clearly lacks an experience with Nordic countries (i.e. Scandinavia + Finland and Iceland), because a lot of what he says does not apply here. Working overtime is perfectly legal in Denmark for instance, if the employees prefer it (forcing them can be illegal). The reason is that in Denmark (and other Nordic countries), labour regulations…

Also the thing about lawyers being cheap is accurate, but this is because in Europe (except the UK and Ireland), we use a Civil Law system, whereas the US (whom borrowed it from the UK) uses a Common Law system. The basic difference is that in a Civil Law system 'the law is the law'; court rules cannot change law practice. In addition, you cannot use previous court decisions to argue in a court of law. You can use th…

> ... whereas the US (whom borrowed it from the UK) uses a Common Law system.

The state of Louisiana was inspired by the Napoleonic Code: juries there decide both facts and law. Precedent is not worshipped like it is in the rest of the U.S.

Re: Advice for US entrepreneurs who move to Europe

#93

Post by Daniel_Newby »

venomsnake wrote: post #55
Nursie wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the UK that would be interpreted as 'constructive dismissal' and you could be spanked pretty hard for that at an employment tribunal. Is it that hard to get rid of someone within the rules?

They were under contract to not cut more than 3K jobs per year, but had to get rid of almost 20K persons. Saw what constructive dismissal is - how is this making the employee life unbearable - he is getting full salary for doing nothing and nobody is harassing him. He is just not allowed to communicate with the rest of the company.

In the U.S., an employee has the right to do the work they were hired to do, owing to the need for career development and currency.

Re: Advice for US entrepreneurs who move to Europe

#94

Post by Nursie »

venomsnake wrote: post #80
Nursie wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Making them sit in a room for hours at a time with no work, monitoring them for any activity they use to distract themselves so you can use it to fire them - that's basically abusive, verging on mental torture. The company being under contract is no excuse for abusive conduct.

Have you noticed the word parasites in my original post? As a post communist regime company in Eastern Europe half were communist party related nepotists, third were incompetent and 20% did medal of honor worthy deeds to try and do all the work there was. It was common for a lot of people to come to work just to drink coffee and do nothing but gossip. They just took away the coffee and the gossip.

So the problem is the regulatory situation that the company was in, this weird contract that required you to keep a certain number of people employed.

I'm sorry you felt you had to abuse people to achieve your business goals. This would not be acceptable in my country, but then neither would you be bound to keep a certain number of people employed.

Re: Advice for US entrepreneurs who move to Europe

#96

Post by [deleted] »

martinvars wrote: post #74

I stand by my comment that I could not start a company in the garage of my father in law in Mulheim an der Ruhr. Many of those commenting here should see how companies get started in USA. And yes kudos to Germany for its changes in recent years. Other European countries should follow its lead. But lets remember one thing, a deregulated work environment in USA has led to engineers getting paid 2 or 3 times as much and…

[deleted]

Re: Advice for US entrepreneurs who move to Europe

#97

Post by jdkx »

justincormack wrote: post #71
michaelfeathers wrote: post #53

Nice article, at least as a heads up for people. But, there are two areas that he did not go into. One was possibility of building a business around relationships with contractors rather than employees. I can imagine there being laws that would make that hard also. The other is that maternity/paternity leave is big consideration also. While I think they are great in many contexts, I've heard from business owners in N…

I dont know of any laws making working with contractors hard, so long as you are not apparently using them to avoid tax. Maternity and paternity are not usually a problem, obviously if your company is small anything can be a problem.

In France it is illegal to use contractors where their condition of work are the same as employees. Specific cases are decided by the court, but basically the status of contractor can't be used to go around labour laws.

Re: Advice for US entrepreneurs who move to Europe

#98

Post by carlob »

At one point the author complains about 20k of social charges overhead on a 50k job. Then a few lines later he says that it's cool that in Europe you mostly don't need to pay 800/mo in health insurance.

Those 20k are the equivalent of the health insurance + 401k. The only difference is that they are mandatory (and IMHO are a much better allocated).

Re: Advice for US entrepreneurs who move to Europe

#99

Post by carlob »

danmaz74 wrote: post #61
Svip wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I somewhat agree; you basically need a middle ground. It shouldn't be too easy to fire people, but neither should it be too hard. I think what we have in my country (.dk) hits that middle ground fairly decently.

As a matter of fact, here in Italy Denmark is often cited as a very good example to follow regarding work regulations.

By Ichino who was until a few days ago part of a very small, yet vocal, minority of a center-left party and has now joined the ranks of the centrr-right.

His views are far far from being mainstream...

Re: Advice for US entrepreneurs who move to Europe

#100

Post by venomsnake »

Daniel_Newby wrote: post #93
venomsnake wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They were under contract to not cut more than 3K jobs per year, but had to get rid of almost 20K persons. Saw what constructive dismissal is - how is this making the employee life unbearable - he is getting full salary for doing nothing and nobody is harassing him. He is just not allowed to communicate with the rest of the company.

In the U.S., an employee has the right to do the work they were hired to do, owing to the need for career development and currency.

In the US employees also get the right to get a pink slip and move the hell away. Which is not always the case in Europe. A friend currently had some trouble firing a very toxic person from his startup.

This is perverse situation where employee rights has gone berserk - in my country firing is hard because the government prefers not to pay the unemployment benefits it is obliged to so they always side with the employees in the private sector.

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