[sofixa]

You're getting more pay for a wild variety of reasons ( VC inflation, a lot of things that pay has to compensate for, etc.), nothing to do with unions.

In France, it's mandatory for companies with more than 50 employees to have workers council and that has to be consulted on serious decisions ( changing offices, firing people, layoffs, etc.) and has some limited negotiation power. They negotiate company-wide policies (accord) on behalf of the employees that have to be at least as good as the branch-wide policies ( convention collective) - e.g. all workers in media companies get 20 days extra vacation because that's what the branch collective bargaining agreement says.

Furthermore, oftentimes ( sometimes it's mandatory), there are profit sharing schemes, e.g in my company 1% of the profits is shared among the employees, so your incentives are directly aligned with the company ( it comes to around a salary's worth of a bonus, so it's decent).