[whybroke]

Is that because you personally have such enormous bargaining power (inspite of a flood of STEM workers)?

Or is it because employers always spontaneously pay the highest wages they possibly can and never, ever treat employees unethically let alone break the law?

Or is that because the current political system is so very, very good at protecting the interests of employees or because market forces do it so very, very, well?

[dagw]

Personally it's because every union seems to be either so big as to be corrupt, highly inefficient and far too busy with petty power struggles to ever care about my insignificant problems or so small as to be essentially powerless.

[whybroke]

Out of curiosity, what actually cite-able numbers regarding wages and working conditions when comparing organized vs unorganized labor lead you to the conclusion that you will always be worse off in every possible organization even including one not yet created?

[dagw]

None, and I'll freely admit that it's certainly possible that there may exist a hypothetical union where I may very well be better off as a member. I'll also concede that the abstract idea and theory of unions sounds perfectly reasonable to me. It's the broken, imperfect, real world implementations of those ideas that always rubs me the wrong way and that I find fault with.

[whybroke]

The internal workings of every western democracy's govenrment vastly exceeds the inefficiencies and corruption of any union I can think of. Yet I don't find being in one so repugnant that I want to leave.

The question of relevance is whether an employee is better off or not. And when organized, employees always enjoy high wages and better conditions.

And, whether organization is personally annoying or not, as a lone individual you will have essentially no power to protect yourself let alone your profession in anyway.

[gozur88]

I'm a professional, and as a professional I don't feel I need to coerce people into employing me. If I don't find conditions acceptable I take my services elsewhere.

[whybroke]

And I assure you that employers, in a perfectly rational quest to maximize profits, will make every attempt to reduce that option by flooding the employment market with, for example, an excess of STEM workers and thereby oblige you to stay on under worsening or at least flat wage conditions.