> What unionless countries achieved these things? It seems to me that workers in countries with unions tend to have far better working conditions than those in countries without union
Beware of correlation/causation. Unions that represent the highest earning workers are the strongest, because the strongest workers already have the highest bargaining power and the highest salaries.
A modern example of what productivity does to working conditions is in SV, where the unionized workers have less perks than the un-unionized ones.
Historically unions are always tied with: import restrictions, protection from competition, minimum wage laws (that dont apply to themselves), unemployment (the best way to increase wages for a union is to cut supply short).
As a nice example, Argentina has unions with constitutional level protections since the 50's, and unemployment is up, working conditions are down, poverty is up, import restrictions are up and minimum wage laws are up: result, 40% of the population works under the table, and union workers have some of the highest wages in the country.
You will seldom find improving working conditions without notable increase in GDP per capita.
