I saw a Youtube video of an American political campaign event where someone from Europe ask a question about unions and pretty much saying that American unions are weak compared to the ones in Europe. Is this true? How are the unions in Europe? Or any other place?
- US is/was about 100 years behind european labor movement (germany, sweden, etc. started mid 19th century; US not until 1935 Wagner Act)
- ghent system - in scandanavian countries, unions provide most unemployment benefits, not .gov. you can imagine this leads to large union membership
- americans lost manufacturing/blue collar ("union" jobs) en masse as white collar jobs rose, whereas trade skills are still a thing in countries like Germany with their sort of parallel university system for trades
- there is probably a relationship between strong social welfare and union membership, though directionality isn't clear - perhaps large % of union membership enables more tolerance towards social welfare, or perhaps social welfare allows people to not worry about retaliation from attempting unionization, or ..