[delayed]

What does that have to do with unions in Sweden?

Unions -> higher costs -> challenging finances for company -> financial trouble -> sale of company.

Volvo Cars was sold to Ford in 1999 when Volvo AB decided to focus on commercial vehicles, there's no financial trouble except the one that Ford went through during the 2008 crisis...

> When the global economic crisis of 2008 threatened the US automakers, Swedish authorities became concerned about the fate of Volvo, should Ford file for bankruptcy. These concerns mounted after repeated mass-layoffs at Volvo. In December 2008, Ford announced that it was considering selling Volvo Cars. Initially, a sale price of US$6 billion was reported.

Your conjecture has no basis in reality, it was not due to unions creating higher costs, it was the mess the USA created for the world in 2008 that prompted the sale of Volvo from Ford to Geely.

This is the theory. In America, the union benefits the union first, the employee second, and the employer a very distant third if at all.

This isn't true as a blanket statement in the US. There certainly have been, and probably still are, bad union organizations (just like anything else), but that's an indictment if those particular organizations, not unions in general. There are also good ones.

Sorry. That's just anti-union FUD. Unions are quite cognizant that they don't exist without an employer, employees, and providing value to each.

That’s a pretty broad brush you’re using. My experience is mostly with the IBEW and so won’t be applicable in all cases. But, the employer gets a flexible, locally licensed work force. They can hire as many people as they need off the union book (no need for lengthy recruitment, skill assessment, and compensation negotiation) on demand and they can lay off electricians as a job winds down. Each local contract will be different, but I think it’s common for benefits to be handled by the union as well. Moreover, the union runs its apprenticeship program so they handle a growing and evolving workforce.

It's my impression that the skilled trades unions (electricians, ironworkers, steamfitters, etc.) are different from e.g. the UAW. UAW is not running an apprenticeship program for autoworkers. UAW members are not employed as needed on demand by the auto manufacturers. Unions like the UAW exist almost completely as a collective bargaining organization for employment contracts with big automakers.

Is this incorrect?

Unfortunately, I don’t have any insight into the UAW. I hope they add value in some way. Unions should adapt to the needs of the sector they’re in so I do expect it’s fairly different from the trades. There’s skilled labor still involved at some level.

My point was just to highlight that unions can and, in some cases are, beneficial to the employer even in the US. That’s not to say all unions are great. These discussions tend to lack nuance.

How does the employer avoid having to do skill assessment? Do they trust the union?

They trust the certification body. Either you demonstrably know the electrical code or you don’t. And the union requires its members to have their licenses (save for apprentices — but they can wash out).

Imagine how much time we could all save if an impartial body certified developers can do breadth first search or reverse strings. No need for all of those phone screen and first round interview questions.

I suppose that works for cookie-cutters where the union treats people as directly interchangeable. Maybe that applies to the majority of union jobs?

I imagine that wouldn't extrapolate to careers where there's a component of soft skill, or hiring for potential?

I haven’t been involved with hiring with other industries, so I can’t really say. Given the way I’ve seen story points get distributed or people moved around after layoffs or a reorg at tech companies, I suspect many industries treat their employees as interchangeable, cookie-cutter or otherwise. For many skilled industries beyond software development we also rely on certification: Professional Engineers, medical doctors, pilots, etc.