If numbers in the article are given in Singapore dollars, then we have quite similar salaries; officially here in Estonia average salary is about €865 or $1370 a month, but regular worker haven't seen such of money :D

About strikes, well, Estonians are not particularly prone to strikes (perhaps that's because it is weak trade union here) and if we do strike, then it's usually without violence (unfortunately local Russians are prone to violence, especially drunk people). Last strike was a few months ago, when medical workers where demanding higher wages. Oh, usually strike means here, that workers don't go to work and that's all.

@jyri78, could you explain a bit more about the unions in Estonia? How are they weak?

In Singapore the unions are more aligned to the government/employer rather than the workers. Most people don't see the unions as relevant.

Here in Estonia it could to say also, that unions are more aligned to the government/employer (maybe it's me). About weakness, workers pay fee and so on, but still it has not much of money and neither of power to stand for workers (usually employers get what they want). If western country people are striking, then they still get salary, but here in Estonia unions don't have enough money to pay for a long time strike (by Estonian law unions have to pay salaries for all the days of the strike or something :D ).

My impression is that strikes in the U.S. are not very common - certainly compared to the mass strikes you often see in Europe. The last big one I remember in the state of Washington was Boeing employees. Eventually a deal was reached but Boeing subsequently moved some of their production to other states that were offering tax breaks and regulations that limit strikes.

You also have employers that devote a LOT of resources to prevent employees from organizing into unions. Starbucks is one such employer where it seemed that they spent a lot of time pressuring employees to not organize.

At the same time though, you have some reasonably powerful unions, such as for teachers. During the election, we heard that the Republican candidate wanted to limit their ability to financially contribute to political campaigns. This presumably is because most unions are strongly Democratic...

My own view is that protests and strikes are a necessary tool to get employers and broader society to pay attention. While I think unions are a necessary tool for organizing employees, it seems that they end up becoming bloated entities with their own self-interests that aren't always aligned with the workers they're supposed to represent.

Basically Singapore is much more concerned with being business-friendly and attractive to investors than about the rights of the workers. It's sad because Singaporeans are actually letting the government get away with it!

http://asiancorrespondent.com/92808/response-to-bus-strike-a-loss-for-all-workers-in-singapore/