It's similar here in Denmark. Most people are members of a union, because it's cheap, and the union has experts in labor law and contracts, while most workers a

It's similar here in Denmark. Most people are members of a union, because it's cheap, and the union has experts in labor law and contracts, while most workers are not experts in those things. We give similar advice to startup founders: don't sign anything without getting a good lawyer to review it first. You could hire a private lawyer as a worker as well, but joining a union is typically more cost-effective. One thing that helps in Denmark is that the individual advocacy angle and the general bargaining angle are separated. I can join any of several unions, or none, as I wish. In my case the researcher's union or the engineer's union are both decent choices. But my broader workplace conditions are negotiated between my employer and the union for this sector of the economy, not my personal union (they might be the same, might not be). As a result there is also no such thing as a "unionized" or a "non-unionized" business; every business over a certain size is unionized in a sense, because labor conditions are always negotiated between employers and employees on a collective basis. Generally this produces a much nicer situation, in which I don't have to become a DIY expert in employment contracts in order to avoid being taken advantage of. It also helps keep onerous terms out of employment contracts, because someone with actual negotiating power and knowledge (rather than me as an individual employee) will object if the employer tries to include a non-compete clause, or similar types of terms. Even highly-paid, intelligent techies in the U.S. often fail to do that: in states where it's legal, suckering people into non-competes is extremely common, and they don't always even realize it until it's too late.