Such meetings are not necessary.

When I came to Austria 30+ years ago I knew that Austria had incredible union density, but the real key is Guild membership. 98% of all workers in Austria are covered by a collective bargaining contract ("Kollektivvertrag").

I run a consulting engineering company, so everyone working in my company is white-collar. They also - every single employee - is covered by a collectively bargained contract.

The chamber of workers and the chamber of commerce for the various guilds negotiate the contracts. None of my employees has to attend meetings or get memos. Neither do I. The guilds negotiate COLA increases, automatic raises due to seniority, etc. It works great.

It is “expensive” here to be an employer as there are no "startup" companies where employees are promised a big payoff in exchange for shitty work conditions today (no healthcare, no unemployment insurance, etc.). One upside is that I live in a country with a really good Gini coefficient where all workers have a decent status of living. As an employer, what I don’t have to do is negotiate with each employee every year over raises, or with insurance companies over plans (huge expenses!), or internally with groups about vacation, unemployment, sick leave, pension and insurance plans. That is all done for me. Perfect? Of course not. But I live in city and country with an incredible quality of life (my life, too!) and in my business I can concentrate on our business. I like that trade-off.