Union Membership and Middle Class Decline

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“If Americans want to live the American dream, they should go to Denmark.” ~ Richard Wilkinson





There has never been an advanced capitalist country with as weakened and small a union movement as today’s United States. (There are very few union members in France, for example, but French unions still have the vast majority of the workforce under union contract.) And according to academic evidence cited in Tim Noah’s recent book The Great Divergence, which Nocera uses as the occasion for his column (and which I reviewed in The American Prospect), the decline of the labor movement is one of the primary causes of American income and wealth inequality, particularly among male workers.







Rank​
Country
opacity.gif

Percent Union Membership​

# 1
sw.gif
Sweden
82%​


= 2
fi.gif
Finland
76%​


= 2
da.gif
Denmark
76%​


# 4
no.gif
Norway
57%​


# 5
be.gif
Belgium
53%​


# 6
ei.gif
Ireland
45%​


# 7
au.gif
Austria
37%​


# 8
it.gif
Italy
35%​


# 9
ca.gif
Canada
30%​


# 10
uk.gif
United Kingdom
29%​


# 11
gm.gif
Germany
26%​


= 12
nl.gif
Netherlands
25%​


= 12
as.gif
Australia
25%​


= 14
ja.gif
Japan
22%​


= 14
nz.gif
New Zealand
22%​


= 14
sz.gif
Switzerland
22%​


# 17
us.gif
United States
13%​


# 18
fr.gif
France
9%​


Weighted average:
38.0%​
 
Sweden is very white. A very white country can make anything work.

The US is becoming less white, less able to indulge in destructive policy, like having a pro-union government.
 
Do Unions Make Us Less Competitive?




“If Americans want to live the American dream, they should go to Denmark.”​


Over the Thanksgiving holiday I was a part of the usual family dinners and of course the subject of current events get brought up. One subject discussed was the decline of American manufacturing and competitiveness. One family friend declared:
It’s all the unions’ fault!
I understand the logic behind his thoughts: Unions ensure higher wages and benefits, the workers get lazy, making it more productive and cost effective to manufacture somewhere else where unions don’t exist.
But is that really true? Doesn’t seem like it.

Countries that are more competitive than the US have some of the highest rates of union membership.

I swear I’m not shitting you. Even I was surprised at what I found.

The World Economic Forum ranks countries by global competitiveness on a yearly basis. Here are the results for 2010.

The OECD collects useful statistics on countries. Here is a list of countries organized by union membership density.
Here are the top 10 countries ranked by competitiveness. To the right is the latest union membership density for that particular country:
1 Switzerland 17.8%
2 Singapore N/A
3 Sweden 68.4%
4 Finland 70%
5 United States 11.4%
6 Germany 18.6%
7 Netherlands 19.4%
8 Denmark 68.8%
9 Japan 18.4%
10 UK 26.5%
What surprised me was how high the union membership rates were for countries like Sweden, Finland, and Denmark. You’d figure that countries with almost a 70% union membership would rank very low in competitiveness. Quite the contrary. These countries are some of the most competitive in the world and rank higher than the US.

Curiously enough, GDP powerhouse France is ranked way down at number 18 in competitiveness right after Saudi Arabia. Surprisingly, it’s union membership rate is lower than the US at 7.6%!

I think it’s pretty safe to say that union membership rates don’t affect a country’s competitiveness. In fact, it looks like it helps!
 
Taxable income - 50+%

Yeah - move to Norway.

Enjoy your $14 Big Mac and the Utopia...

You’ll get more back from your taxes, e.g. you don’t have to pay for health insurance. How much do you pay for your HI pr. month??Taxes in Norway aren’t that high either, it is a bit above the EU average. Many countries have higher taxes than Norway. Taxes by country under. One of the lowest taxes in western europe

Taxes-by-country.png
 
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Do Unions Make Us Less Competitive?




“If Americans want to live the American dream, they should go to Denmark.”​


Over the Thanksgiving holiday I was a part of the usual family dinners and of course the subject of current events get brought up. One subject discussed was the decline of American manufacturing and competitiveness. One family friend declared:
It’s all the unions’ fault!
I understand the logic behind his thoughts: Unions ensure higher wages and benefits, the workers get lazy, making it more productive and cost effective to manufacture somewhere else where unions don’t exist.
But is that really true? Doesn’t seem like it.

Countries that are more competitive than the US have some of the highest rates of union membership.

I swear I’m not shitting you. Even I was surprised at what I found.

The World Economic Forum ranks countries by global competitiveness on a yearly basis. Here are the results for 2010.

The OECD collects useful statistics on countries. Here is a list of countries organized by union membership density.
Here are the top 10 countries ranked by competitiveness. To the right is the latest union membership density for that particular country:
1 Switzerland 17.8%
2 Singapore N/A
3 Sweden 68.4%
4 Finland 70%
5 United States 11.4%
6 Germany 18.6%
7 Netherlands 19.4%
8 Denmark 68.8%
9 Japan 18.4%
10 UK 26.5%
What surprised me was how high the union membership rates were for countries like Sweden, Finland, and Denmark. You’d figure that countries with almost a 70% union membership would rank very low in competitiveness. Quite the contrary. These countries are some of the most competitive in the world and rank higher than the US.

Curiously enough, GDP powerhouse France is ranked way down at number 18 in competitiveness right after Saudi Arabia. Surprisingly, it’s union membership rate is lower than the US at 7.6%!

I think it’s pretty safe to say that union membership rates don’t affect a country’s competitiveness. In fact, it looks like it helps!

too stupid!!! unions vary from country to country in terms of what they do and the affect they have. Europe has about 65% of our standard of living so there is nothing there to emulate. If our unions made us more competitive big business would be eager to start them rather than move off-shore to avoid them!! Foreign companies would be eager to move to Detroit to embrace them rather than to the South to avoid them!!

No need to feel dumb, you're a liberal. Its natural and you can't help it.
 
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Do Unions Make Us Less Competitive?




“If Americans want to live the American dream, they should go to Denmark.”​


Over the Thanksgiving holiday I was a part of the usual family dinners and of course the subject of current events get brought up. One subject discussed was the decline of American manufacturing and competitiveness. One family friend declared:
It’s all the unions’ fault!
I understand the logic behind his thoughts: Unions ensure higher wages and benefits, the workers get lazy, making it more productive and cost effective to manufacture somewhere else where unions don’t exist.
But is that really true? Doesn’t seem like it.

Countries that are more competitive than the US have some of the highest rates of union membership.

I swear I’m not shitting you. Even I was surprised at what I found.

The World Economic Forum ranks countries by global competitiveness on a yearly basis. Here are the results for 2010.

The OECD collects useful statistics on countries. Here is a list of countries organized by union membership density.
Here are the top 10 countries ranked by competitiveness. To the right is the latest union membership density for that particular country:
1 Switzerland 17.8%
2 Singapore N/A
3 Sweden 68.4%
4 Finland 70%
5 United States 11.4%
6 Germany 18.6%
7 Netherlands 19.4%
8 Denmark 68.8%
9 Japan 18.4%
10 UK 26.5%
What surprised me was how high the union membership rates were for countries like Sweden, Finland, and Denmark. You’d figure that countries with almost a 70% union membership would rank very low in competitiveness. Quite the contrary. These countries are some of the most competitive in the world and rank higher than the US.

Curiously enough, GDP powerhouse France is ranked way down at number 18 in competitiveness right after Saudi Arabia. Surprisingly, it’s union membership rate is lower than the US at 7.6%!

I think it’s pretty safe to say that union membership rates don’t affect a country’s competitiveness. In fact, it looks like it helps!

too stupid!!! unions vary from country to country in terms of what they do and the affect they have. Europe has about 65% of our standard of living so there is nothing there to emulate. If our unions made us more competitive big business would be eager to start them rather than move off-shore to avoid them!! Foreign companies would be eager to move to Detroit to embrace them rather than to the South to avoid them!!

No need to feel dumb, you're a liberal. Its natural and you can't help it.


Hilarious!
In case you didn't notice --- beginning in the 1970s', union membership stood at about 33-34% of the workforce, as union membership began to decline and their ability to fight corporate off-shoring diminished, manufacturers began closing factories --- then, unions declined and manufacturers moved more factories --- then, unions declined and manufacturers moved more factories --- then, and so on...


By 2010, union membership had dropped to about 11-12% (one of the lowest rates in the OECD) of the workforce and in the 10 years previous, 50,000 factories had fled the US's non-unionized labor force.


Far be it from me to call you an idiot but the facts just don't support your idiotic premise-------why do you hate Americans that work for a living?



✄snip>

I think it’s pretty safe to say that union membership rates don’t affect a country’s competitiveness. In fact, it looks like it helps!

The Auto Industry

Usually the dinner table discussions about unions digress to the auto industry. Now these days most people in the US prefer Japanese-made over US-made cars. The narrative here in the US has been that it was the unions fault.

However, I learned that Japan has had an autoworkers union since 1972. It has 770,000 members. That’s twice that the United Auto Workers union here in the US which has 376,000 members.

Again, if unions stifle competitiveness, how could Japan overtake the domestice auto sales in the US with a union membership twice that of the US?

Income Inequality

I posted a TED talk above about income inequality. You should watch the whole thing. Here in the US we have had an unprecedented rise in income inequality.

So what? Well, the speaker in the TED talk makes some really good observations on how income inequality is correlated with health, murder rate, trustworthiness, mental illness, and other societal characteristics.

The countries that rank the best on income equality are Denmark, Finland, Sweden, and Japan: Countries with very high union membership rates. Here in the US, studies have shown the rise in income inequality is correlated with the decline of union membership which was around 30% in the late 1970′s.

✄snip>


 
Do Unions Make Us Less Competitive?




“If Americans want to live the American dream, they should go to Denmark.”​


Over the Thanksgiving holiday I was a part of the usual family dinners and of course the subject of current events get brought up. One subject discussed was the decline of American manufacturing and competitiveness. One family friend declared:
It’s all the unions’ fault!
I understand the logic behind his thoughts: Unions ensure higher wages and benefits, the workers get lazy, making it more productive and cost effective to manufacture somewhere else where unions don’t exist.
But is that really true? Doesn’t seem like it.

Countries that are more competitive than the US have some of the highest rates of union membership.

I swear I’m not shitting you. Even I was surprised at what I found.

The World Economic Forum ranks countries by global competitiveness on a yearly basis. Here are the results for 2010.

The OECD collects useful statistics on countries. Here is a list of countries organized by union membership density.
Here are the top 10 countries ranked by competitiveness. To the right is the latest union membership density for that particular country:
1 Switzerland 17.8%
2 Singapore N/A
3 Sweden 68.4%
4 Finland 70%
5 United States 11.4%
6 Germany 18.6%
7 Netherlands 19.4%
8 Denmark 68.8%
9 Japan 18.4%
10 UK 26.5%
What surprised me was how high the union membership rates were for countries like Sweden, Finland, and Denmark. You’d figure that countries with almost a 70% union membership would rank very low in competitiveness. Quite the contrary. These countries are some of the most competitive in the world and rank higher than the US.

Curiously enough, GDP powerhouse France is ranked way down at number 18 in competitiveness right after Saudi Arabia. Surprisingly, it’s union membership rate is lower than the US at 7.6%!

I think it’s pretty safe to say that union membership rates don’t affect a country’s competitiveness. In fact, it looks like it helps!

too stupid!!! unions vary from country to country in terms of what they do and the affect they have. Europe has about 65% of our standard of living so there is nothing there to emulate. If our unions made us more competitive big business would be eager to start them rather than move off-shore to avoid them!! Foreign companies would be eager to move to Detroit to embrace them rather than to the South to avoid them!!

No need to feel dumb, you're a liberal. Its natural and you can't help it.
Ed is a con tool. If a corporation would like a policy, then Ed will like it in every case. Just as republican politicians do. But at least the politicians are paid for their allegiance, ed just does as he is told for FREE.

Funny how the cons all consume the coolaid that union members make the big bucks and have the great pensions, without any doubt. But, they have no issues with the corporate ceo who makes 200 times as much, and the multi-millionaire politician who feeds this bs to them. Union members are not rich and work hard for their money.
 
too stupid!!! unions vary from country to country in terms of what they do and the affect they have. Europe has about 65% of our standard of living so there is nothing there to emulate. If our unions made us more competitive big business would be eager to start them rather than move off-shore to avoid them!! Foreign companies would be eager to move to Detroit to embrace them rather than to the South to avoid them!!

No need to feel dumb, you're a liberal. Its natural and you can't help it.

What are you basing that on?

Have you ever been to Europe?
 
too stupid!!! unions vary from country to country in terms of what they do and the affect they have. Europe has about 65% of our standard of living so there is nothing there to emulate. If our unions made us more competitive big business would be eager to start them rather than move off-shore to avoid them!! Foreign companies would be eager to move to Detroit to embrace them rather than to the South to avoid them!!

No need to feel dumb, you're a liberal. Its natural and you can't help it.


What are you basing that on?

dear, "That" is pronoun; in this case without a noun.
 
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too stupid!!! unions vary from country to country in terms of what they do and the affect they have. Europe has about 65% of our standard of living so there is nothing there to emulate. If our unions made us more competitive big business would be eager to start them rather than move off-shore to avoid them!! Foreign companies would be eager to move to Detroit to embrace them rather than to the South to avoid them!!

No need to feel dumb, you're a liberal. Its natural and you can't help it.


What are you basing that on?

dear, "That" is pronoun; in this case without a noun.
Swallow,
You, as I, have noticed that ed makes no sense, and posts vacuous charges. He has no proof, he is just a typical tea bagger. Just spouting dogma, looking for more of his ilk to back him up. If he is ever questioned, as I have several times, he does not come back with a rational response, just more dogma and as many insults as he can fit in. Seems incapable of rational discussion.

You may have noticed that the tea party directs their members to this forum, as they do not allow discussion groups in most of their web sites. Just tell people what to believe, and they don't want to discuss their statements.
 
Scandinavia: all white, sparsely populated and they don't let their lawyers make a living suing their doctors.
 
If he is ever questioned, as I have several times, he does not come back with a rational response,.

why then are you so afraid to present your best example of this for the whole world to see??? What does your fear tell you, liberal.
 
If he is ever questioned, as I have several times, he does not come back with a rational response,.

why then are you so afraid to present your best example of this for the whole world to see??? What does your fear tell you, liberal.
Because, ed, as any thinking person knows, things are not black and white. Taxes, for instance, are neither good nor bad. Depends. A balanced budget is neither good nor bad, depends. I hope this is not to complex for you, ed.

Listing 15 items and saying they are all true, and if you followed them they would save the republic, is patently stupid.

Try to take them one at a time and defend them, ed. If you are capable.
 
If he is ever questioned, as I have several times, he does not come back with a rational response,.

why then are you so afraid to present your best example of this for the whole world to see??? What does your fear tell you, liberal.


Because, ed, as any thinking person knows, things are not black and white.

and that is why you cant present your best example of your unanswered questioning???

See why we are positive a liberal will be stupid?? What other conclusion is possible?
 
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Republicans see a devastated and uneducated Middle Class as a "wild success".
 

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