[Excerpt] This book is about employee voice in the workplaces of the highly developed Anglo-American economies: the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand. These are among the most economically successful countries in the world. Despite being located in three different geographic areas, the Anglo-American countries have a common language and legal tradition, have close economic and political ties, and are linked by flows of people, goods, and capital. Many of the same firms operate in each country. The unions in each pay more attention to their counterparts within the group than to unions in other countries. The Anglo-American brand of capitalism – market oriented and open to competition, with modest welfare sates and income transfer systems – differentiates the countries from countries in the “social dialogue” model of the European Union (although the United Kingdom and Ireland are part of the Union) and from the highly unionized labor system in Scandinavia.