[ChuckMcM]

Generally unionization is fought fairly hard by companies for the simple reason that it restricts what they can do and takes some control out of the hands of management. In the Bay area in the late 80's there was mumbling about unions after the great semiconductor flame out. A lot of people were laid off without warning and since it was widespread the ability to walk across the street and get rehired was limited. Since you can't really unionize when you aren't working somewhere, and when the people working somewhere are just glad they weren't the ones laid off, its hard to convince them they need to come on board.

As employer abuses, such as the 'no poaching agreement' came to light, or sudden changes in salary compensation etc. That provides incentive but it often isn't enough incentive to start the really vicious knock down drawn out fight that unionizing would entail.

Bottom line I think it would take a perfect storm of events, gross employer abuse, a large group of people who feel they have nothing to lose, and the prospect of a very bleak future unless something radical changes. We saw what happens when those forces align last Noveember, it doesn't happen all that often.

[cam_l]

Fully agree.. but I wonder what would happen if unions started to take a leaf out of the 'no poaching' corporate playbook and simply unionised secretly. Collective bargaining via synchronised individual bargaining, where everyone demands the same conditions on their employment. (Surely this could be appified ;) Perhaps if there were no official union, the vicious knock down would be much more difficult to focus. And it could be much easier for a coordinated and realtime response direct from the employees, rather than an intermediary.

I think the thing that people forget with regard to unions and employers is they are simply about redressing a massive power imbalance in a potentially mutually beneficial relationship.

[slavik81]

Unions are essentially a form of cartel, and they suffer from all the same organizational problems. Workers are faced with a prisoner's dilemma. The best individual choice is always to defect. To keep a unified front you need some sort of centralized force that prevents people from defecting. In traditional unions, it is enforced by law that all employees must join the union if the shop is unionized.

A secret voluntary union would lack that unifying force and would collapse as workers pursue their personal self-interest.

[cam_l]

True. But corporates seems to survive with majority cooperation and occasional defection. Perhaps there does need to be some mechanism to 'tat' the 'tits' who defect.

My take is that the major obstacle workers face in negotiating conditions, pay, and work, is information asymmetry. Having everyone negotiate from an increased negotiating position should help the honest workers as well as the defectors.. and one would hope, the employers.

[rkofman]

If all you're looking for is information symmetry, you don't need unions. You just need to have a representative sample publicly publish their salaries / other comp details.

[specialist]

This book was revelatory for me. I was aware of game theory stuff, but had no idea how it applied to groups.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Logic_of_Collective_Action

[M2Ys4U]

>In traditional unions, it is enforced by law that all employees must join the union if the shop is unionized.

That very much depends on the jurisdiction. Closed-shops are illegal in Europe.

[MrLeap]

This could be brilliant.