Where Is the German Trade Union Movement and Where Is It Going?- by Benjamin Weinthal
Germany is the world's leading exporter and the third largest industrial economy, following Japan and the United States. German multi-nationals are drowning in supreme opulence, yet the wages of German workers remain severely depressed. The Wall Street Journal, engaging in low-intensity class struggle labor journalism, confirmed in its January article "German Unions See Leverage in Pay Fight": "there is little question that German workers have lost ground.
In Germany Labor costs rose 10% from 2000 to 2006, the smallest increase of any country in the European Union and far below the bloc's 22% jump during that period." There is, moreover, less strike activity in this highly unionized country than in France and the United States, both of whose union density rates remain significantly lower than that of Germany.
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