Comment by braiamp

Part of what made the "no union" deal work out for early tech employees was that supply was scarce and demand was exploding. Good pay and equity weren't really a function of not having a union, they were a function of being early in a market with more jobs than workers. We should keep that separated, before crediting the lack of a union for the result.

That's leverage you didn't build and don't control and it's already eroding as the market catches up. Which is why collective bargaining needs to exists, a way to hold onto ground when individual leverage isn't guaranteed.

BTW, it's not like unions had it easy. Even as they were legally recognized (organized labor was treated as a antitrust problem), the judiciary has in the US been dismantling the little foothold it has after it. The US needed 2 new laws to actually get something. And even then, it doesn't enjoy the same flexibilities that other forms of collective arraignment has, such as capital, in the way of "right-to-work" laws, at-will employment and strikes aren't protected as they should. Hell, legal existence and being on equal footing with the other side of the table have never been the same thing.