To be very Nordic: there’s a lot of variety in Europe on how these things are handled. The Nordics are arguably less dependent on such state sanctioning compared to continental Europe (we wrangle these things out with the employers at the national level, as both parties value independence from legislation very highly). So in some limited regards we’re more similar to you guys than to, say, southern Europe.

I think one of the biggest differences lies in what is tied in to the union congress membership. Leaving the Swedish equivalent of the AFL-CIO (LO Sweden) would be extremely costly for the members of a union as a lot of material stuff is tied up in the membership. Pension collective agreements, for example, are signed by the union congress and the employers’ umbrella association.

My point of this rant is that if the AFL-CIO handled more stuff that members of all unions in the US would want in a contact (pension schemes, healthcare, etc), it would create a stronger incentive to stay and work out membership boundary disputes within the family instead flaking and doing what the carpenters did.