It feels like North America hates unions enough that we got the very worst of them. In Europe, there isn't the same societal conflict over unionization, but at

It feels like North America hates unions enough that we got the very worst of them. In Europe, there isn't the same societal conflict over unionization, but at the same time they aren't any more in love with the idea of industrial labour monopolies like the UAW than we are. Where unionization works well, it's been because the government regulated to create competitive unions. In Germany, once a company unionizes, the union has special rights and privileges within the company, including access to the company's books and executive meetings. And things like union-busting are illegal. There's a lot of legislation in place to prevent the sort of abuses that North America has always seen with "company unions". But they can't join together with workers at other companies to form industrial labour monopolies either, so you still get market competition.