In Europe sectoral unions and sectoral bargaining is the norm. In the US federal law does not allow that. Each firm must unionize individually.
In the US unions and enterprices play zero sum game against each other. If the firm unionizes, the firm loses relative to non-unionized competition.
Example: the current UAW (United Auto Workers) dispute in the US. If UAW wins, unionized enterprises lose to Tesla.
In Sweden (and many other european countries) unions work with government and companies to make the business succeed and that success be spread to the employees, this means the bad times are also amortised by the workers as well.
It is not perfect but it is not a zero-sum game which keeps both sides more aligned. I wish I could have had a 10% raise to match inflation, but I have been getting ~1% raises above inflation for the past several years so it kinda makes up for it.
If I understand correctly, this isn't true. There are laws that make this effectively true, but that's not quite the same thing.
For example, secondary boycotts are banned. This limits the rights of workers and unions to freely associate and mobilize for their interests. That little doozy was rationalized by the excuse of protecting the economy (read: the status quo).
Ianal, and idk if this is a distinction without a difference; but it seems worth pointing out.
In Europe, we have laws that encourage it. For example, Finland has generally applicable collective agreements. If a large representative majority of workers achieve agreement with enterprise representatives in an industry sector, the agreement can become generally applicable. Every employer must observe at least the minimum provisions of a wide national collective agreement once it's considered representative in the relevant sector.
(Finland does not have laws about minimum wage. There is very little need for them because generally applicable agreements set the minimums.)
AFAIR Tesla follows the typical US corporation stance of "kill it with fire" against unions. A sick version of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend"
How do you know they aren't? They wouldn't exactly run out to the press and yell "HEY EVERYONE WHO ISN'T WORKING FOR US JOIN THE UAW".
I'm not saying they are; I'm asking, how do you know they aren't?
I've seen arguments saying they are still against it, because in the long run, if UAW workers get way better salaries/benefits than Tesla workers, they'll unionize or leave for a union job regardless.
In other words: they want to keep exploiting their workers as much as possible for as long as possible.
If companies were less abusive and not ran by sociopaths in the US we wouldn't see the acceleration of unionization like we are.
how does that work?
Their costs are higher. (So far, I haven't seen evidence of higher productivity among unionized auto workers sufficient to make up for the cost gap.)
maybe the owning class should take less profit so the consumer doesn't have to take on that extra cost, but unfortunately the incentive structure of capitalist enterprise doesn't work like that.
Given perfect mobility, yes. But the labor market Tesla and foreign manufacturers in the United States compete in are separate from those of the UAW's. The evidence for this is in their present labor cost differential: $45 and 55/hour for Tesla and Toyota, respectively, vs $65/hour for UAW factories, en route to $100+ [1].
Keep in mind, too, that union jobs are supply constrained. The UAW represents about 200,000 automotive workers [2]. That's a fifth of all motor vehicles and parts manufacturing workers [3].
> maybe the owning class should take less profit so the consumer doesn't have to take on that extra cost
It's going the other way. Tesla can cut prices to below where Detroit can turn a profit. That matters when the latter are asking for capital to fund their investments.
One solution would be to tax non-union produced cars such as to equalize the gap. But again, that would require a state to trade their consumers' welfare for another's employees'. A better one is to pass into law worker protections for all Americans.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_United_Auto_Workers_strik...
[2] https://www.npr.org/2023/10/19/1206209107/united-auto-worker...