Just to take Sweden as an example. For public companies with more than 25 employees the workers have the right to two members and two substitutes on the compani

Just to take Sweden as an example. For public companies with more than 25 employees the workers have the right to two members and two substitutes on the companies board. Usually these come from the union working with the company. The goal of this is to create a dialog of how the company is run and similar on every level of the company. Regarding your question about the salaries, that is mostly blue-collar work here. For white-collar workers the unions mostly exist to enforce regulations and allow the workers to have the legal clout and information necessary when disputes arise, creating more of a do it right the first time rather than try to bend the rules to see how far you can go environment. Salaries are individually negotiated.