Hi there, to start, I wanted to make clear that I'm a student, European and young enough to make mistakes, so if I say something wrong, don't be too rough with me please.
One of the assignatures I have is politics. Today, we started to talk about trade unions in my country, and I found very interesting data I would like to share and compare to data I find in the US.
The country I refer to is Germany, and the data I'll be using is from 2020
To start, 18.4% of all workers in germany are members of a Union, which is roughly 7.7 million from 41.74 million.
In the US, 10.8% of all workers are members of a Union, circa 14.3 million from 132.41 million.
In Germany from 2000 the percentage of workers in the unions is getting lower from 24% to an actual 18%.
In the US, since the 2000s, the percentage is getting lower as well from 13.5% to 10.8%. (Not to talk about how in 1984 the percentage was 20.1%)
Knowing this it makes me wonder how the numbers keep decreasing despite people willing to have more fair work conditions. For instance, the number of workers has increased since both countries only increase their population, while the percentage is getting lower.
As for the average annual wages, we have that
(again from 2000 to today)
Germany increased from 40,924$ to 48,146$ (an increase of 17.65%)
US from 42,148$ to 71,456$ (an increase of 69.54%)
Seeing that huge increase only makes me think if the data they are showing to us is real or they are just lying and the ones getting rich are as always the elite.
I do think that because of “higher” income nowadays, workers are getting less interested in unions while other media and influential people try to deceive others into thinking that unions are bad and full of “commies” like someone told me once.
This is all I wanted to discuss today . If I made any mistakes, please let me know. Thanks for all.