You got what I meant unless you're being obtuse. The point remains that the demand preceded the financial ability to bargain for it. It was independent of income.
> How do 'see' direct causal links?
By looking at when employers offered concessions in order to end strikes etc. Now you are being obtuse. Go back and look at newspaper archives from major labour conflicts and the concessions negotiated with the union actions as the direct and immediate reason cited by employers themselves, even at times after having spent fortunes on people like Pinkerton to try to intimidate and harm workers to get them back to work first.
> If income levels explain all the variation between countries, and levels of union activism are just noise, I am not sure why you need to appeal to union activism as a cause?
I've seen no evidence that they explain all the variation. I've agreed they likely correlate with much of it. Now consider that income-differences do not just magically spring into existence either, and while there are certainly multiple factors again we have extensive examples of direct cause and effect in terms of negotiation and subsequent agreements.
> A parasite should be careful not to kill the host.
When you describe workers as parasites, that is utterly vile and explains a lot. And so we are done here.
