BROADCASTS.com

When you first arrive in Denmark to work or look for work, the last thing you need is another monthly expense. So many foreigners \u201csave money\u201d by not joining a union.

And I was one of them. To be honest, joining a union never even occurred to me.

In the US, unions are either for hands-on workers \u2013 steelworkers, hotel maids \u2013 or for civil servants, like schoolteachers and cops. Knowledge workers and creative types are almost never unionized.

But that\u2019s not true in Denmark, where engineers, doctors, lawyers, bankers, managers, and writers regularly join unions.

Unions can arguably be even more important for foreign employees than they are for Danes.

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