[tchaffee]

There's a lot more to it than that.

EU legislation establishes individual rights for all workers, with a maximum working week of 48 hours, paid annual leave of at least four weeks per year, rest periods and rules on night work, shift work and patterns of work.

Who needs unions with great labor laws already in place? Of course the right in the US want none of that.

A lot of EU law already in place is a wish list for US employees who join a union.

[Jensson]

But that just makes right to work seem even better, EU where workers don't need to pay unions to get rights still pay their unions and are way more willing to join unions. So to me demonising right to work doesn't make sense, California could add those worker protections if they wanted, I see no reason at all why they need workers to give up their rights so that unions can take their money.

[tchaffee]

You need the strong labor laws first which the US does not have. Right to work in the US is popular in states with the worst labor laws and mostly the poor states.

Right to work could be good under the right conditions. Which the EU already largely has. In fact many EU countries have far stronger labor laws than the EU laws themselves. That's the context within which right to work starts to make sense.

[Jensson]

If you have the power to take away right to work from your workers then you also have the power to give them good conditions like paid vacation instead. I see no reason ever why you would remove right to work in that situation instead of just legislating proper worker rights, except to feed unions.

[tchaffee]

> I see no reason ever why you would remove right to work in that situation instead of just legislating proper worker rights, except to feed unions.

The massive wealth gaps in the US tell the actual story. Corporations have a huge influence over US law and the laws mostly benefit the corporations over individuals or unions. That's one of the dangers of massive wealth. You can just buy the government. Which has already happened in the US.

[torben-friis]

> Who needs unions with great labor laws already in place?

That's kinda like asking 'who wants vaccines when we have this wonderful herd immunity?'

Unions are the reason those labor laws are there in the first place.

[tialaramex]

It's complicated. Unions do what their members want. But "what the members want" can be pretty different from what turns out to be a good idea in hindsight. Should children work down the coal mine? The view of somebody who wants that extra income from their 12 year old working in the mine may be quite different...

I support many union actions at my employer, for example I joined their recent strike, withholding my labour (and consequently getting paid less) because the employer and indeed their entire sector, refuses to make sensible pension and pay provisions - but I won't join the union itself because I don't agree with all their positions and I'm content with the trade off that results.

[tchaffee]

Are you sure that unions are responsible for the EU laws? Can you give any sources for that? I'm truly curious about it because the EU comes up with a lot of good consumer protection and worker laws and it's not obvious what motivates them to do so. Just as example, the law about universal phone chargers. Industry certainly didn't push them for that. Quite the opposite. So where did it come from other than it being a big plus for consumers and in reducing waste?

[torben-friis]

> I'm truly curious about it because the EU comes up with a lot of good consumer protection and worker laws and it's not obvious what motivates them to do so.

This is less directly related to unions.

The EU was founded as two basic principles - free movement of goods, free movement of workers. The idea was to achieve a common comercial block that could compete in the era of superpowers.

What we’ve come to realize is that those basic principles end up almost building a country from the ground up:

You can’t have workers from france outcompeting germans by selling lower quality meat because the French don’t have to follow German animal health standards. So, common health standards for everyone.

You can’t have an Italian company outselling Spanish companies because the Spanish lose money repairing defective products and the Italians don’t have to. So common consumer laws.

keep going and we’ll eventually have an army to protect our interests, etc. and we’ll become a federal country of sorts.

That explains why the EU creates standards. We all have to compete under the same rules.

As for why set the standard as “improving rights for everyone” rather than “lowering rights to the minimum for everyone”, it is always going to be more popular to raise the standards, rather than be an institution that takes rights away from citizens of the member nations. If the EU was seen as the big guys that force you to work and live in worse conditions it would not last long.

[orwin]

15 day PTO and the 40h week was brought by a conjunction of union work, general striking, and the first elected socialist government in France.

I dunno when the EU laws were created, but the 4th and the 5th week of PTO were also brought by unions (one with the help of q socialist government). The other 14 days (we have 39 total PTO in France, 14 of those can be redeemed as money basically) i don't know where they came from.

[tchaffee]

> and the first elected socialist government in France.

So that's the missing piece I was looking for. I think you'll find something similar in Italy.

The big difference in the US is that Americans have never elected a truly labor friendly government. These laws in the EU are not just the result of strong unions. You need government to be on board too and that requires the voters.