http://lmab.nu/poland/trade%20union.jpg

Over the last twenty years there has been a widespread decline in trade union membership throughout most of western Europe. Since the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989, unionisation in many eastern European states has collapsed at an even more dramatic rate. In Poland, for example, today's 14 % level of unionisation is in marked contrast to that of the Soviet-controlled era, when almost all workplaces were unionised. Most of those who remain trade union members in Poland work for former state-owned companies.

In only 8 out of the current 27 member states of the European Union (EU) are more than half of the employed population members of a trade union. In fact, the EU's four most populated states all have modest levels of unionisation, with Italy at 30%, the UK 29%, Germany 27% and France at only 9%.

As a consequence, three out of every four people employed in the EU are now not members of a trade union. Furthermore, in every EU country outside Scandinavia (except Belgium), trade union membership is either static or continues to decline. Even in the UK, where a clear formal procedure for trade union recognition was introduced through the 1999 Employment Relations Act, the unionisation of employees has remained stable.

FedEE estimates that, in the medium term, the average level of unionisation across the EU will fall even further - from 26.3% today to just under 20% by 2010.

Taken from: http://www.fedee.com/tradeunions.html