“… unions in Europe are a lot weaker than in the US.” Maybe in other countries, but certainly not in Germany. I grew up in the southern US, and am still astoun

“… unions in Europe are a lot weaker than in the US.” Maybe in other countries, but certainly not in Germany. I grew up in the southern US, and am still astounded at how strong and effective unions are here, even in conservative Bavaria. I’m in IT, but employed under a permanent contract that was negotiated by and is enforced by IG Metall, the industrial union for all non-management employees of lots of companies, regardless of job function. For example, Germany requires that employers give 24 paid vacation days per year. The contract I signed has 30. As the post-COVID inflation spun up, they pretty quickly got us an 8% across-the-board pay increase without much drama, because they’re taken pretty seriously by management, and that’s on top of lots of little increases over the years. I don’t adore everything IG Metall does, but I have trouble even imagining a comparable situation in the US, especially the southern US.