dippin

The first column in the second table is manufacturing as share of GDP. So manufacturing is 13% of the American economy, and 12% of its workers are unionized.

In Hong Kong, the destination of so many companies that are leaving, manufacturing is responsible for 38% of their economy, and 22% of their work force is unionized.
In Taiwan, another favorite destination of American Business, has 38% of their work force unionized. And nothing compares to the Nordic countries. 20% of Finland's GDP is in manufacturing, and 75% of its work force is unionized.

The reasons why manufacturing employment is going down in the US is related to 2 things:

- Productivity and hours worked
- healthcare costs
- ease

It is simply easy to relocate abroad, and no amount of union busting is going to make American salaries competitive with salaries in India, Taiwan and so on. Similarly, while other nation's governments foot the healthcare bill, American business pay for healthcare here that not only is the most inefficient of all developed nations, but also the most expensive.

And finally, while elsewhere improved productivity has led to a reduction in hours worked, here, partly because the employees are so powerless, hours worked have actually increased. If you have people working more hours and being more productive, you will need fewer people than before to produce the same stuff. On a per hour basis, even Norway and France, highly unionized countries, are more productive than the US.