There’s not much structurally different about unions in Europe, but they exist in very different legal circumstances. Unions in the US are micromanaged by the NLRB and many complex laws enacted during the cold war.

Unions aside, Germany requires by law that corporate boards have a minimum percentage of representation from bottom-level employees, meaning employees who are nobody’s boss. This law seems to have been invaluable to working conditions in Germany. The catch is that the American ruling class would simply never allow such a law to be passed. Germany has the law as a result of history. Remember the Soviets defeated the Nazis, “first they came for the communists” and so on.