Techies Turn to Organized Muscle.(Internet cos employees turn to work councils, Germany)(Brief Article)

This time last year, Pixelpark was New Economy to the core. At the high-flying Web-design agency, in a converted east Berlin light-bulb factory, proud staffers called themselves Pixels. They pulled all- nighters alongside CEO Paulus Neef in a happy team effort to get rich quick. The company stock they owned rose tenfold in just six months. Then came the downturn, and revolt. With losses mounting and Neef threatening to lay off 200 of the 1,500 Pixels, they did the unthinkable: dusting off a predigital relic of German industry, they elected a work council--employee representatives with the power under German law to negotiate firings, hirings and company policy--and took Neef to court to challenge the layoffs. "The time when we could resolve our differences with Paulus in the kitchen is long gone," says Pixelpark project manager and work-council chair Katja Karger.

As layoffs loom at many of Germany's leading Internet companies, nervous dot-comers are seeking old-fashioned protection from work councils and unions. About two dozen tech firms have elected councils, including eight of the top 50 listings on the tech-heavy Neuer Markt. The German units of AOL and Amazon last year became the first Net companies to elect councils, which can negotiate everything from pay scales to the exact time for a coffee break. All this reflects serious doubts about a largely imported, American dot-com culture. In a recent poll by the Rare Company headhunting agency in Heidelberg, one third of job applicants said they'd rather have a higher salary than stock options, and two thirds wanted a work council to represent their interests. "Job applicants no longer expect a cool office and stock options, but security," the study concluded.

In part, this is about growing up. Many New Economy companies are way past the kids-in-a-garage start-up phase but still lack mature channels of internal communication. "Companies like Pixelpark and AOL are already Old New Economy," says Torsten ...