[troels]

Not that you're wrong, but this is just to remind you that the EU isn't a country. Especially worker-laws varies quite a bit between countries.

Surprising perhaps, the nordic countries have very liberal worker-laws, compared to other european countries. For example, there is no minimum wage in Denmark, and most workers are more or less employed as fire-at-will.

[eli_gottlieb]

I know there are many systems in Europe, with many differences. Most of them are still better than what we've got in the United States, excepting maybe a few states that are known as "progressive" for having basic standards in line with the rest of the OECD.

For instance, in Massachusetts, employers are required to give each full-time worker five sick-days off each year, we have a state-level health-care law so that MassHealth will still operate if/when the federal Obamacare system is repealed, and we raised the minimum wage to $11/hour. There is still no paid family-leave law, no minimum amount of holiday/PTO, and unions still have a hard time expanding here.

For this, we're considered the most left-wing state in the Union, except maybe California.

This is just plain silly.

[true_religion]

The US has a tightly constrained political spectrum. This means places like Arizona, and Texas are considered viciously rightwing (and utterly bigoted and racist if you listen to left-wing US blogs), simply because they want to protect their industries from non-citizens and perhaps deport non-citizens who illegally reside within their borders.

To contrast, France opposes nearly every multinational who wants to a buy a local company with more than 50 workers, and for that it's still considered a silly left-wing EU state.

[eli_gottlieb]

Left versus right is about labor versus capital, not local versus national versus transnational.

[keevie]

Important context for Denmark not having a minimum wage is the fact that more or less everyone (including managers) is in a union, and if you are fired you'll get paid unemployment that is not too far from your actual wages.

[troels]

Certainly. The nordic model is basically that the labour market is kept quite liberal, to the benefit of companies, but this is balanced by a strong social security net. This is in contrast to how things work in most of the rest of Europe, where there are strong laws in place that protects workers. The result is that it's much easier to start and run companies (and to fail in doing so) in the nordics.