Trade Unions in Europe

The European Trade Union Confederation was set up in 1973 to promote the interests of working people at the European level and to represent them in the European Union institutions. It is recognized by the European Union, the Council of Europe, and the European Free Trade Association as the only representative cross-sectoral trade union organization at the European level.

Some countries, such as Germany, Belgium, Sweden, Finland, and the other Nordic countries, have strong, centralized unions, where every type of industry has a specific union, which are then gathered in large national union confederations. The largest union confederation in Europe is the German Confederation of Trade Unions. Usually there are at least two national union confederations, one for academically educated and one for branches with lower education level. The largest Swedish union confederation is Swedish Trade Union Confederation (Landsorganisationen, or LO). The LO has almost two million members, which is more than a fifth of Sweden's population. Finland's equivalent is the Central Organisation of Finnish Trade Unions, with about one million members out of the country's 5.2 million inhabitants. In addition, there are two other Finnish union confederations for more educated workers, with combined membership of approximately one million.

Over the last twenty years there has been a widespread decline in trade union membership throughout most of western Europe. Since the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989, unionisation in many eastern European states has collapsed at an even more dramatic rate. In Poland, for example, today's 14 % level of unionisation is in marked contrast to that of the Soviet-controlled era, when almost all workplaces were unionised. Most of those who remain trade union members in Poland work for former state-owned companies.

The problem with trade unions in Colombia is that they don't always have the willingness to achieve some of their goals and continue working to better the production of the company, but, they want to take the strikes or whatever they do to don't work, to rest, and they almost always ask for a ridiculous amount of things that they know the company cannot provide... In Europe, the trade unions do work, they fight for their rights, ask for a normal amount of rights and continue working.

_____________________________

http://www.fedee.com/tradeunions.html

http://www.worker-participation.eu/National-Industrial-Relations/Across-Europe/Trade-Unions2