There are three elements to the work culture; the company, the labor and the government. There’s a reason that Europe only has one remaining company still in the Fortune 100. The European labor and government regulation have combined to stifle any change whatsoever. Without the ability to lay off employees so you can adjust your business model you’re left keeping some unprofitable enterprise because labor laws and government regulations to “protect” workers have combined to make it ruinously expensive to shut something down. Of those three elements, the company’s purpose is to make a profit. The worker’s purpose is to keep a paycheck while doing as little as possible to earn it. The government’s purpose is two-fold, they want votes from the workers and money from the company. Decades ago, I worked for Honeywell in St. Pete. There was a union shop. No program wanted to use the in house union shop because they NEVER got a project finished on schedule. It was easier and a heck of a lot more pleasant to use an outside shop. As each union member retired the company sold their machine and moved the walls to make the shop smaller. Eventually all the union members, with their special rights and privileges and horrible attitude, would all be gone.
And then comes the nightmare of Unfunded Pension Liability that follows the company AND its owners FOREVER.