American unions are different. People from Germany have come to visit me in Maryland and remarked on road construction sites and how many guys that are just standing around. Here, you'll have multiple guys just standing directing traffic. In Germany, they put up some cones and a signal light.

Do labor unions have an extremely combative relationship with business in Europe, and have they been traditionally associated with city/state corruption and criminal families? If not, I'd say there are cultural differences here that can't be simply explained by 'unions are big'