One of the reasons labor unions are weak in the US is the Taft-Hartley act. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_Management_Relations_Act_of_1947 https://en.wik

One of the reasons labor unions are weak in the US is the Taft-Hartley act. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_Management_Relations_Act_of_1947 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_Management_Relations_Act... Although the article at the top claims it didn't have a major impact on the power of unions, if you read further down and see what the act actually does, it's easy to see how over the longer term it crippled the effectiveness of unions. In short, it made unions less capable of forcing change (by curtailing strike actions) and gave employers much more power to oppose unions (including preventing supervisors from joining or supporting the union). This means a system like that in Germany where the labor union has a seat on the board is explicitly discouraged. Personally I'm ambivalent about unions, but my opinion is shifting a little in favor of collective action in light of how power has shifted between management and labor.