Even though trade union membership still has several strongholds around the world, the concept of collective bargaining has suffered a notable international decline in recent years. In 1985, average trade union membership in OECD countries was 30% and today, that has fallen to just 16%. Given economic dissatisfaction, slow wage growth and widespread inequality, there is a renewed interest in the use of trade unions for strengthening workers' collective voices and bargaining power. If progress is to be made, however, some countries are going to have far more work to do than others.
The OECD recently published their latest rankings for trade union membership across its member states and there are considerable variations between countries. Declining unionization is common across most OECD countries and the only ones that have made gains since 1985 are Iceland, Belgium, Spain and Italy. Iceland remains the most unionized country in the OECD by far and 90.4% of its workers hold membership. 104,500 of them, approximately half the country's workforce, are members of a single union - The Icelandic Confederation of Labour. Collective bargaining is important to the Icelandic economy and strong unions have contributed to an excellent gender balance as well as high levels of inclusiveness and low levels of inequality.
Trade unions have a long tradition in Scandinavia, and today, Sweden boasts one of the world's highest membership rates at 66.1%. Its biggest union is The Swedish Trade Union Confederation which is an umbrella organization for 14 trade unions that represents 1.5 million people, most of whom are "blue-collar" workers. In the United States, around 10% of employees are members of a trade union, a figure that's considerably lower than the 20% recorded in 1983.
*Click below to enlarge (charted by Statista)
