This is too simplistic. You just go "unions bad," when really it is about the legal framework and system. France, Britain and the US all have very low unionization rate yet all had lots of problems with unions.

Meanwhile in Germanic countries: Germany, Sweden, Norway, Iceland, Denmark etc it has often for decades been close to 80-90% of the population in unions, yet society works. Why does nobody ever stop and ask why that is?

You can be a racist and suggest Brits, Americans or French are somehow inferior to Germanic people, or you can be open minded and start looking at the different legal frameworks and practices.

In the US the law explicitly states a company only exists to produce money to the share holders. In German law in contrast about companies it emphasizes that a company exist to serve multiple purposes of with generating value for shareholder is just one of them. In my native Norway, worker participation and influence in the workplace is baked into the constitution.

My country has had coal workers, road workers, electricians and other simple people as prime ministers. Sweden currently has a former welder as prime minister. The working class themselves have held the power and been able to shape union laws. They have made sure that workers have strong representation in companies. In Germanic countries workers can vote on something from 33% to 66% of all the board members. I don't know about France but I know it is 0% in the US and the UK. Workers have no power at companies. They are not part of decision making or long term planning.

That is the key difference. In Germanic countries workers are used to being given responsibility and take part in planning. This foster a stronger culture of cooperation: taking and giving. In Anglo-Saxon countries it is completely conflict driven. It cannot be anything else, because worker have no say in anything. They are treated as dumb monkeys to be bossed around.

And no offense but it does not seem to be much better in France. All all countries run be elites. The common folks never have a say. When Norwegian companies send people down to France to do various work, they often have to invent titles for them, because their French counterpart will refuse to work with them if they don't have a fancy enough title.

I remember an important technical demonstration being held up in France because a junior developer was present and the French refused to get a demonstration by a junior developer. It had to be someone with a fancier title. They preferred to waste the whole day waiting over letting the junior developer do a crucial demo.

Norwegian companies experienced the same taking over UK shipyards. Norwegian management invited the workers to participate to plan how to turn the shipyard around. The British workers thought it was a clever trick and refused to show up. Never in the decades they had worked there had management EVER asked their opinion on ANYTHING.

So don't just blame unions. An arrogant and elitist leadership culture both at companies and politically combined with a broken legal framework is a major source of these problems.

But I suppose it is always easier to kick the guy lying down than to hold those in power accountable.