Scandinavian countries have massive powerful trade unions that work to negotiate standards and wages for everyone. Even if you're not actively part of a union, your employer will almost certainly use Collective Labor Agreement negotiated by the trade union. This CLA guarantees certain things like vacation time, minimum wages, break times, etc.

Now you could not use a CLA drafted by a union and instead try to fuck people over with your own contracts. That's not very likely to work though since these countries tend to have strong social welfare systems coupled with free healthcare. So if people quite due to shitty pay and/or hours, they can still make do with social benefits. Also people here in Finland at least, know that for most jobs you absolutely want a CLA drafted by one of the unions because that CLA protects you.

Most companies use the CLA's as a base and allow employees to negotiate better contracts if they want to. E.g you can ask for less hours and more pay, the CLA generally only guarantees minimums. Now an employer can always try to renegotiate the agreement with the union for their workers, but you better be damn sure you treat your workers right since if the unions decide that you're not, they will fuck you up.

These unions are massive and hold a ton of power. In Finland over 70% belong to a union and it is not uncommon for them to strike if the employers are trying to fuck them up. The best example of this is the recent chaos with the Finnish Postal Service.

To give you an idea on what happened, the postal service tried to renegotiate the CLA they used, which would have resulted in worse pay and hours for the workers. Union was taking none of it and went to strike. The postal service tried to get around this using questionable means which broke International Labour Organizations rules. This led to a ton of sympathy strikes which eventually ground the nation to a standstill.

Public transportation froze, flights were cancelled, trains didn't run, all goods transported by postal cars were boycotted by unions this led to stores not being stocked up as they should have for example, ferries and cruise ships under Finnish flag froze. Among numerous other things. The unions eventually won after inconveniencing thousands of people and costing corporations tens of millions of euros.

The workers didn't get shafted and their rights were protected even without a government mandated minimum wage.

But the point I wanted to make was that I think even if we had stronger unions, Americans like myself have become lazy and afraid of being inconvenienced. We had Occupy Wall-Street, but I'm just not sure. I just don't envision my fellow Americans striking, together, for things. We're barely united on anything as it is right now.

Just some general thoughts/comments. I'd love to hear other perspectives on this.

That would be illegal in Switzerland (not really a business hating commie hell hole). When a collective agreement exists for specific areas it applies to all companies in that area.

That's not to say that dodgy firms don't try to get around it, but if they're caught it it gets expensive and troublesome. And checks (alas, I don't know if sufficiently) are conducted.

The national mail in Finland is tasked to do letter service, which no other postal company is doing. Letter service is also the most human intensive job there is.

Their unions regulate wages, and in practice this means the same thing as a government-mandated minimum wage. It just so happens that their structure is a little different.

Because other countries haven't institutionalised the idea of poverty-line wages.

We don't really have a minimum wage in Austria either, but wages are regulated per industry. So employers are still required to pay certain wages, even though we don't have a general minimum wage.

And there's no such thing as including tips in the wage, tips are always extra.

(There is one major loophole, of course, which is hiring people as contractors, but that requires convincing the authorities that your employees are not really employees)

The countries you mention don't need minimum wages set because they have other mechanisms or even just social norms that ensure nobody is having to work 8 jobs to try to feed their kids.

It's a neoliberal fantasy-land, yes. Lee Kuan Yew's autobiography was called "From Third World to First" for good reason.

Also living on any sort of low wage is massivly uncomfortable. Just affording air conditioning is difficult.

Even people with great jobs end up living with multiple generations of family in tiny apartments.

What do we know about Singapore? It has masses and masses of public housing, so people are looked after in a way that doesn't happen in the US. The US is very keen to push this sort of thing on employers - see also health insurance.

It's a different model and I would agree probably a worse one, but either way it's the state ensuring people have their basic needs met.

The US healthcare-through-employer tax rebates are crazy. But politically untouchable, alas.

That didn't mean that people were working several jobs to get by, not that they were paying to work. Maybe it was the easily accessible public welfare that forced employers to pay a living wage, or the large proportion of union membership.