I’m also a European migrant to America and the way I see it is that while we kept our unions in Europe, America haphazardly abandoned theirs. The only remaining unions are the ones with the strongest power structures and the chances of someone misusing their power in such a power structure is quite high.
In my opinion workers in America (my self included) desperately need to re-unionize. While I do admit that my working conditions are personally no worse then back home (I certainly get paid a lot more here; though I wouldn’t mind some health care) that is not the case most for American workers, including close friends and family.
Most Americans are lacking basic labor rights that we in Europe take for granted, such as paid sick leave, parental leave, paid holidays, higher overtime pay, guaranteed rest period, heck they don’t even get mandatory breaks and refreshments doing hard manual labor. This is something that collective bargaining, cross industry worker’s solidarity, picket lines, and strategic voting got them in the early last century but they have since lost.
In Europe we don’t need it as much because we have maintained our unions (and most—but not all—of these rights). In Europe the unions don’t need to be as political because the political victories from the prior years still stand. In America, not so much.
With that said, this doesn’t mean America should just take any union. If the union isn’t working—or worse it is actively harmful—it’s leadership needs to be replaced. If you don’t have a union you should try to get one, and you should try as you can to elect a good and competent leadership that will work improve labor conditions for all workers.
In my opinion workers in America (my self included) desperately need to re-unionize. While I do admit that my working conditions are personally no worse then back home (I certainly get paid a lot more here; though I wouldn’t mind some health care) that is not the case most for American workers, including close friends and family.
Most Americans are lacking basic labor rights that we in Europe take for granted, such as paid sick leave, parental leave, paid holidays, higher overtime pay, guaranteed rest period, heck they don’t even get mandatory breaks and refreshments doing hard manual labor. This is something that collective bargaining, cross industry worker’s solidarity, picket lines, and strategic voting got them in the early last century but they have since lost.
In Europe we don’t need it as much because we have maintained our unions (and most—but not all—of these rights). In Europe the unions don’t need to be as political because the political victories from the prior years still stand. In America, not so much.
With that said, this doesn’t mean America should just take any union. If the union isn’t working—or worse it is actively harmful—it’s leadership needs to be replaced. If you don’t have a union you should try to get one, and you should try as you can to elect a good and competent leadership that will work improve labor conditions for all workers.