there are a whole bunch of smaller labour unions in Norway. i never joined anyone of them. it's not too common to do so if you work for private SMBs since it's not as effective. you just end up being a small guy fighting another that is only slightly bigger than you.
in any case, these work together under a bigger umbrella organisation that is simply called "Landsorganisasjonen" - The Country/Land Organisation
they chose "Norwegian Confederation of Labour Unions" as the official translation of their name.
i'm not quite sure they realised the unfortunate connotations that "confederate" carries, especially in American English...
@mjdxp i think the general idea was to find a single word meaning "union of unions"
@mjdxp if a federation is a kind of unified thing, then a confederation must be a unified thing consisting of other unified things
@thor @mjdxp AFAIK the difference is that a federation is a union under a common government like the US, Russia and partially EU, while a confederation is a union based on common pacts, which aren't all forced on all members. (Partially like the EU, where being members of the EU parlament, economical union, having Euro and being in Schengen are all different things and there are countries that do some but not the others.)
