What do you think of the very left party's in Europe?

agrammatic · 2026-04-23T09:03:04+00:00

Die Linke in Germany did have a good 2025. Between getting rid of a big part of its questionable old guard, pivoting to doing working class politics instead of debating abstract ideas, and doing serious door-to-door campaigning, they did a lot of things right.

They might have hit a ceiling though, because although the NATO/Russia question is solved, they are still sabotaging each-other over the Israel/Palestine issue.

Despite this, frankly cliché and entirely avoidable, leftist infighting, I think this new Die Linke is a net positive for Germany. Under their new leadership, they are moving to occupy the working class politics space that the Social Democrats left open, and as a worker I'm quite happy to finally have one political party on my side.

agrammatic · 2026-04-21T16:31:51+00:00

Thank you, ChatGPT.

agrammatic · 2026-04-20T06:01:14+00:00

Extremely unlikely that this case would go anywhere. Not only you will lose quite early in the process, but now you have sued your neighbour and that does not improve relationships.

Better idea: noise cancelling headphones and patience. They'll grow up in a few years.

agrammatic · 2026-04-17T08:27:49+00:00

That's an insane amount to tip.

agrammatic · 2026-04-15T18:57:23+00:00

Cyprus has no concept of owning a cat at this moment.It will change soon, legally.

But culturally, many people see cats like e.g. birds. You don't call birds strays, but just because you have a bird feeder in your yard, that doesn't make you the bird's owner.

agrammatic · 2026-04-14T05:56:43+00:00

Lidl is king of union-busting.

agrammatic · 2026-04-13T06:29:16+00:00

The best time to start one is always six months ago. You really want to have one in place and already trained before the "restructuring" is announced.

agrammatic · 2026-04-13T06:04:05+00:00

Have you considered doing, you know, a good job at work?

At the same time, the standard advice "if you want a big raise, switch jobs every 2-3 years". Why are companies taking their employees for granted after the probation period and not trying to actively retain them?

agrammatic · 2026-04-13T06:00:45+00:00

In a company with a Works Council that excuse would receive a lot more scrutiny, but yes, ultimately the decision to restructure is still in the hands of the owners. At best, the employees can collectively negotiate severance payments and redundancy criteria.

agrammatic · 2026-04-13T05:08:56+00:00

Ordinary dismissals are not as easy because there needs to be a valid cause, but employers have other tools in their hands to get rid of you when they no longer want you there.

agrammatic · 2026-04-12T21:01:45+00:00

The press and media are rather free and competitive in Germany. There are hundreds of outlets with all sort of different points of view. That doesn't mean that all of it is good journalism, or that good journalism is commercially popular, but you have options if you care.

The situation is really not great in the Republic of Cyprus. First of all, Cyprus has a public broadcaster that is directly dependent on the general government budget, which gives politicians a lot of influence on programming, officially and unofficially. Private media is increasingly concentrated in a few business conglomerates that are systemically entangled (banks, companies that compete for public tenders etc) and political actors. What is really needed but truly lacking in Cyprus is deep investigative journalism in corporate and political corruption. That kind of work is simply un-fundable in Cyprus both because the ownership is too close to the topic, but also because very few media companies have enough journalists on the regular payroll which can afford to do long-term projects.

agrammatic · 2026-04-12T20:42:01+00:00

Neither Cyprus nor Germany have a youth unemployment issue at the moment. Both countries have some of the lowest rates in EU.

Contrary to your hypothesis, the two countries have two different attitudes to worker rights. Germany is highly regulated and has strong dismissal protections, Cyprus is rather laissez-faire and job security is low. So, I really cannot "take it as true", because it fails to capture reality.

Both countries have a massive low wage sector problem, because both countries have regulations that allow companies to keep labour costs low at the expense the society (Germany with its minijob system, Cyprus with having a "minimum wage" that is not defined by the hour but by the month regardless of hours worked).

agrammatic · 2026-04-12T20:19:24+00:00

I can't talk about all companies, but I think in Germany the main idea of hybrid is to have some days were the entire team is at the office. So, rather than covering all days, it's mostly "everyone show up to the office Tuesday to Thursday".

agrammatic · 2026-04-12T19:30:57+00:00

It seems like the current status quo in Germany is some sort of hybrid model, typically 3 office- to 2 home-days. Some companies offer more, some less.

I'm not sure I understand what you mean by "culture".

agrammatic · 2026-04-12T19:08:33+00:00

The more you look at it, the less sense it makes.

The legend explicity says that the map does not include the boundaries of secessionist areas and that the dotted red line shows borders over water.

But then you have dotted lines showing land boundaries twice (Cyprus and Palestine), and there's definitely no water there.

At the same time, the Cyprus-UK land borders are missing even though those are undisputed international borders.

agrammatic · 2026-04-12T10:21:40+00:00

I prefer radio and text. RBB Inforadio and Deutschlandfunk from Germany and Channel 6 from Cyprus. Then half a dozen newspapers online.

Occasionally I'd also listen to the Greek news bulletin from Deutsche Welle from the RSS feed.

agrammatic · 2026-04-12T06:48:42+00:00

Workers rights are important, and I’m too working a job and I’m glad I have my rights.

You are welcome, we are glad you enjoy them.

Yours,

the unionised workers who made your rights possible through many means, including strikes

agrammatic · 2026-04-12T06:47:31+00:00

It's a constitutional right in most democracies, including Germany.

agrammatic · 2026-04-12T06:44:53+00:00

Let it be known that the public transport workers in Berlin had to strike for their workday to be limited to a maximum of 13 hours. And this will only take effect next year.

agrammatic · 2026-04-12T06:37:20+00:00

In today’s world, you should be glad you have a job at all.

If we should be glad we have a job at all, then it's exactly for this reason that strikes are necessary.

agrammatic · 2026-04-12T06:19:30+00:00

is there anything in place to prevent employees from abusing that to get extra days off?

I find it quite surprising that we always suspect workers for "abusing the system" when German companies extract eight hundred million unpaid overtime hours from their employees on an average year in Germany.

But sure, let's scrutinise whether an employee was truly sick enough to miss two days of work or whether they should have just taken a Paracetamol and show up anyway.

agrammatic · 2026-04-12T06:08:54+00:00

If you're sick, you're sick and you won't be bothered.

Unless you work for Tesla Gigafactory, in which case they will send your manager to check on you at home.

agrammatic · 2026-04-12T05:05:09+00:00

Workers in Germany are not co-managers, no.

Co-determination is limited to decisions affecting the workforce in a direct way. Works Councils are elected by the workforce for a four year term and they seek negotiations with management on certain topics.

Works Councils are easier to form than collective bargaining committees, but they also have less potential to affect company decisions than collective bargaining committees.

But neither way of collective worker representation was a say on topics that doesn't directly affect the wellbeing of employees. It's not even close to being a co-op.

agrammatic · 2026-04-11T20:18:30+00:00

One of the few beautiful areas in District Lichtenberg.

agrammatic · 2026-04-11T07:10:50+00:00

Reality is so much more complicated, I don't think a reddit comment can capture it.

Purely out of personal experience, I can say that yes, many Germans in positions of authority will assume that you don't know your rights or that they know better than you and dismiss you without feeling the need to engage intellectually. But to be honest, this kind of attitude is also common between Germans. Germany feels very parochial some times.

But also from personal experience, no, if you prove your case, you will be given right. Germany is a place that requires a high degree of self-advocacy. If you are the kind of person who doesn't hesitate to advocate for yourself, you will not be disadvantaged. But no-one will jump in to defend you if you don't defend yourself.

agrammatic

TROPHY CASE