Mercedes-Benz workforce to receive record profit-sharing bonus

&quot;The company&#x27;s management and General Works Council have jointly agreed to pay all eligible employees a special lump sum bonus of up to 7,300 euros, a figure that is even higher than the current maximum payment cap of 6,465 euros.&quot;<p>This General Works Council seems to be something like a separate &quot;union within the company&quot;, in addition to whatever union represents various workers within the organization. On top of that, Mercedes Benz has a corporate Supervisory Board with 1&#x2F;2 of the members representing the employees.<p>Interesting how this structure has a headline like this one, vs the &quot;&gt;10k workers laid off from giant corporation with record profits for the past two years&quot; headlines that seem to be popping up here daily.

The optics on this one have been fascinating to watch on social media.<p>I&#x27;ve seen a lot of people in my own network who work at U.S. tech companies share this as an example of what companies <i>should</i> be doing. A lot of contrasting takes about how U.S. companies are laying people off while MB is handing out higher than expected bonuses.<p>Meanwhile, I know for a fact that a lot of the people sharing this are getting paid significantly more than these employees and also have bonus plans that pay out several multiples higher than the highest MB payout (7300EUR) even in a bad year.<p>Maybe this is an example of managing expectations. Mercedes-Benz paying four-figure bonuses to employees is noteworthy largely because they&#x27;re paying more than expected. Meanwhile, I see people who earn significantly more being unhappy because their compensation was less than some number they expected.<p>Interesting lesson in how expectations are relative, not absolute.

I work for a small-mid sized German software engineering company (~200 employees). Last year the company raised all wages by 7,500.- EUR (additionally to the usual raises). This was not a one-time payment, but a permanent increase in pay and it was the same absolute amount for all employees (including office management and other non-engineering departments). The reasoning behind this decision was that the inflation was hitting employees with lower income harder than employees with higher income positions.<p>Whenever I&#x27;m seeing posts like this, I wonder if &quot;up to x Euros&quot; isn&#x27;t the other way around and smaller incomes are on the lower end of the bonus range.<p>Link (content written by our PR department, in German): <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.presseportal.de&#x2F;pm&#x2F;164280&#x2F;5271230" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.presseportal.de&#x2F;pm&#x2F;164280&#x2F;5271230</a>

Something missing from this conversation is that Mercedes is one of the few &#x27;legacy&#x27; carmakers that are managing the transition to EVs and automated driving well.<p>They have flagship EVs - EQE, EQB, EQS that are well reviewed.<p>They are the first car company to get approved for L3 self-driving in the US: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;insideevs.com&#x2F;news&#x2F;630075&#x2F;mercedes-first-to-offer-level-3-self-driving-in-the-us&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;insideevs.com&#x2F;news&#x2F;630075&#x2F;mercedes-first-to-offer-le...</a><p>and they are building out their own network of charging stations: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;insideevs.com&#x2F;news&#x2F;629594&#x2F;mercedes-ev-charging-network&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;insideevs.com&#x2F;news&#x2F;629594&#x2F;mercedes-ev-charging-netwo...</a>

Seems this story only applies in Germany, but their US tech workers also get a bonus at the same time that is partially based on company performance. My bonus last year was <i>very</i> nice because they&#x27;ve been doing so well (in the ballpark of $50k as a senior dev), and it looks like it&#x27;ll be similarly nice this year too.

Coming from Stuttgart, Germany, it is well-known that if you get any position within the local automotive industry, it counts as making it. Doesn‘t matter what level, even if you work on the assembly line. So I interpret this post as follows: HN discovers that building German cars is a very good business.

Is there a good third-party URL for some independent reporting about this? A corporate press release is not usually a good source for this kind of thing. This is a bit of an exception to HN&#x27;s &quot;original source&quot; guideline.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;hn.algolia.com&#x2F;?dateRange=all&amp;page=0&amp;prefix=false&amp;query=press%20release%20by%3Adang&amp;sort=byDate&amp;type=comment" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;hn.algolia.com&#x2F;?dateRange=all&amp;page=0&amp;prefix=false&amp;qu...</a><p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;newsguidelines.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;newsguidelines.html</a>

Bonuses are cheaper than pay increases.

Not that Mercedes is a good example, but is there a name for company philosophy of being employee&#x2F;team-centric versus investor centric? E.g. all profits shared among employees instead of shareholders for example. I&#x27;d like to work for a company like that.

Destroying the world with vehicles makes a lot of money. This company fuels the whole region ( suppliers etc ) where I live.<p>Workers there are paid more than average, however compared to US salaries that&#x27;s not much.<p>So it&#x27;s always perspective.

Just a sliver of the profits given to the plebs to appease the masses, media

Very common in automotive companies during the good times. Heck they can even get bonuses when the union starts a new contract with the automaker.

Very nice. Still not buying their cars until they get their long-term reliability and depreciation issues worked out.

This is what happens when your country has laws requiring workers to sit on the board. Aka strong unions by law.

Lets see if the thing where big companies applies here, (it won&#x27;t).

Meanwhile at Tesla ..

Is this supposed to be a lot? I used to get 50% bonuses on my base (which was already high) when I worked on Wall St.

Car companies are in for a rough 2023 so if Mercedes loses money will they deduct from their salary?

what was this incredible strategy that was implemented?<p>sounds fishy.

It&#x27;s funny in that the structure is inherently what Economic Fascism is, separating the economics from the nationalism&#x2F;racism typically associated (from Nazi Germany). The economic bits seem to hold over though.<p>Nothing is really stopping similar organization from happening in the formation of Corporation in the US and elsewhere. But it has to be part of the foundation of said company, especially if it&#x27;s publicly traded, as it&#x27;s very hard to do after the fact. I&#x27;m not convinced it should be restructured via force from the Government, and not even as a bailout, as I&#x27;m not a fan of those govt actions either.

Record profits everywhere while inflation raged on. Only one explanation then for inflation: PRICE GOUGING.<p>Corporate greed during global pandemic. Capitalism at its finest. Now we all have to pay the price just like on 2009. Privatize profits. Socialize losses.

Doesn’t Mercedes-Benz pay very very poor salaries?