Union leaders moved on to other activities to try to maintain relevance — such as running industry super funds or seeing involvement in ALP factions as a substitute for the social strength of unions themselves.
Spain's problems are mostly associated with the euro, combined with some bad economic policy decisions that have nothing to do with "labour inflexibility", the strength of unions or government spending.
The strength of unions and protective labour laws also promotes the status quo, favouring older, entrenched workers over younger ones coming in.But even in these more traditional countries there are signs that the role of the young is changing.
Milton Friedman argued in 1968 that economies gravitate towards a "natural" rate of unemployment, pinned down by slow-moving supply-side factors such as the strength of unions or the geographical mobility of households.
From Arnie in San Diego: One reads about structural impediments such as the wealthy evading taxes in Greece and Italy, and about the lack of competition in these countries because of the strength of unions, and the difficulty in obtaining new business licenses and the like.
The dwindling strength of unions has contributed to wage suppression, the loss of fringe benefits, and the end of retirement security for the average American.
The social democratic compromise of Fordism -- a kind of tenuous harmony between money power and people power -- depended on the strength of unions.
Indeed, as we shall see, the correlation between the strength of unions and the strength of the middle class is so empirically strong it might well be considered causal.
And it was also the continued strength of unions that led to Medicare and Medicaid, Food Stamps, Head Start and the Elementary and Secondary Education Act that were passed to directly mediate poverty.
The bargaining theory is very attractive to labour organizations, for, contrary to the subsistence and wages-fund theories, it provides a very cogent reason for the existence of unions: simply put, the bargaining strength of a union is much greater than that of individuals.
