I suspect that US laws have made unions mostly toothless. I know this has happened to teachers unions. It's illegal for teachers unions in TN to strike(I don't know about other states). What power does a union have if they can't strike? Also Unions have been demonized in the US media and now public perception of unions is extremely low. Which is sad because they're one of the few tools workers have to bargain for their own rights.
Well, it's only public service unions that can't strike (it depends on state/federal/etc. so there are a lot of things here that I can't accurately comment on) and even so I'm not sure that I find myself agreeing with collective bargaining for public employees either. It's a topic for discussion, for sure.
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.
