I work for a labor union in the US and what you describe is the same as what we have here. I think one big benefit of unions that is often overlooked is grievances. Before I was a unionized worker I often had to deal with my boss blaming his mistakes on me and taking credit for my ideas. This kept me from getting raises and promotions as it marred my permanent record. Had I been unionized I would have been able to file a grievance and an investigation would have taken place to determine whether my story or my boss's was true. I haven't had such problems with my current job but I feel much better knowing I'm protected should anything arise. Working for the union, we encounter a lot of problems like this though. For example, we have an employee here on a visa getting paid for one month but being told he better show up for 4 months. If he does not, his family who is also here on visa could be fired and be sent back to their home country. Without a union he'd be powerless to fight this. I think part of the problem creating with the antiunion sentiment in the US is that the relatively few instances when unions are awarded to much are highly publicized while the instances when unions were able to improve conditions bordering on slavery for workers are not. Another part of the problem is that non-unionized workers tend to respond to to hearing what unionized workers get with thoughts such as "That's not fair. Look at how much worse what I'm getting is and look at what they've demanded" instead of "That's not fair, we should unionize and get the same benefits."