Yes German unions work really well. I think part of it is that after WW2 the whole system was designed to be a market economy with social elements (“soziale Marktwirtschaft “).
And because the Nazis explicitly went after trade unions. Postwar, people understood that preserving democracy in the workplace was an equally important bulwark against the return of fascism. Nazism wouldn’t have been nearly as powerful and horrendous without its business allies (in both Germany and the US), which is why it was important to check their authoritarianism.
Weird to get downvoted for a historical truth. Trade unions had their assets seized and their leaders thrown in concentration camps. But here’s the reference anyway...
“The Trade Union Movement and the Redistribution of Power in Postwar Germany”
Clark Kerr
The Quarterly Journal of Economics
Vol. 68, No. 4 (Nov., 1954), pp. 535-564
