Workers’ Councils often don’t exist because people don’t dare to form one. Despite pretty good rights for employees, it can still feel like painting a target on your back.<p>I should have more forcefully driven for the creation of one in my small company. But it’s all too late now. The company was sold by the owner to a much larger US company and the day after that was announced, nearly a third of employees were fired.<p>We are developing B2B SaaS and sold that in combination with professional services, with about a 50:50 split in revenue from those two parts. The company built its product without outside investments and has practically always been profitable in the past, with ok revenue growth, but we were seeing pressure from competitors who did have large investments.<p>The US company didn’t want professional services (and also not anyone doing sales and marketing), they wanted the developers. A couple of weeks into this that seems absurd, especially since they seem to be expecting to keep most of the existing revenue which seems impossible since, you know, we had a 50:50 split in revenue and the people responsible for 50% of that (who had close working relationships with the clients) are no longer there. They are now flying people here but there is hardly anyone to teach them and … you know … usually it takes at least a couple of months to get people up to speed. Months in which our existing clients want to get work done! It’s so irrational. It’s also deeply immoral and unethical.<p>Whether it be greed or a fundamental misunderstanding of how the product works or what do I know … that whole thing was surreal and weird and I kept thinking that one of the problems was that the person making the deal was fundamentally not understanding the business. Maybe a workers’ council could have helped or at least found a socially more responsible way.<p>But when the acquisition was only a rumor I frequently mentioned to my colleagues that forming a council would be a good idea but never actually did it. Because, you know, who would want to paint a target on their back.<p>But it is important for such institutions to exist. Employees inherently tend to have less power than employers and their work is not really optional. They can’t just decide to not do it and changing jobs or career or places where you live can be difficult to impossible. That’s why that isn’t just some kind of exachange of money for work. It has to be specifically and explicitly and strongly protected and workers should always have a say in the business because it concerns them. And their interests and the employers interests are not always aligned.