[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.