OK fair enough but again, I don't really think this makes sense as part of a criticism of Clinton and Democrats pursuing anti-worker policies. Criticizing them for not having their justice departments use existing antitrust regulations to attempt to curtail the size of unions through government regulation seems like a bit of a stretch. I don't entirely disagree with the broader point that more unions is probably better than fewer (except in one sense: the union has to be big enough to have enough collective bargaining power to bring employers to the table, and if they could only call a strike with some portion of the employer's workforce that would obviously be a problem for the union) but it just seems to have strayed pretty far afield from any sort of legitimate criticism of supposed "anti-worker" policies for Democrats.
IMO the far bigger thing is that decades (centuries?) of conservative anti-union propaganda has been successful in many places, and many of the very people unions protect now see unions as the enemy. That is what has allowed the passage of "right-to-work" laws (which are always pitched as pro-worker, hence the misleading name) and the steady erosion of union membership and power in many industries.
It's not "fair enough." The Wrambling Wreck over here is just making stuff up, again.
1. The largest German trade union is larger per capita than the largest American union. At one point this century, the largest umbrella trade union organization in Germany represented 84% of all union members. Wikipedia says now that the DGB "only" represents 68% of unionized workers in Germany. That is way higher than any comparable organization here. For more details:
2. American unions WERE subject to antitrust scrutiny and even prosecution in the early days. In fact, the Clayton Act of 1914 included a provision to exempt unions from antitrust, as antitrust issues had been used to defeat the basic idea of unionization prior to that. Congress then expanded those protections in the Norris-Laguardia Act of 1932, which is why sports collective bargaining agreements can exist (except for baseball, which doesn't need it because stupidity).
3 The reason that unions have more effectiveness in Germany is that they have more power. Bargaining happens on a regional and industry basis. That is, employers form their own associations, and the union reps and the employer reps sit down and bargain over wages. They don't have to recruit members -- and certainly don't have to engage in the drag-down, bare-knuckles fighting of American organization efforts -- because all workers are covered in sectoral bargaining. There are no right-to-work laws. In fact, there's no such thing as "at-will" employment.
4. The basic shape of the labor system in Germany is shared across other European countries. There are differences, but no European country uses competition between unions as part of their industrial policy. The reason is that it just doesn't make sense. Unions, like electric utilities, are natural monopolies.
I encourage anyone who is interested to read the link I provided above
