[throwayit]

I disagree. I think the union would or still do benefit many industries.

For example, consider doctors. They don't have a union but there should to help regulate working conditions. There are so many abusive workplace practices in medicine like number of hours that doctor is forced to work through residences and fellowship. There are many examples of doctors dying from a car crash after their shift. We limit the hours truckers, pilots, and air traffic controllers but we are ok with having our doctors being sleep deprived as they operate on us? Doesn't make sense. This article deep dives into it: https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2016/12/no-doctor...

Another area - cab / ride sharing drivers. Do you really want Uber and Lyft to set rules on hours, breaks, etc. for their drivers given their track record on ethics and following regulations? As one example, Uber had a known bug for several months where they didn't pay the correct amount of commission to their drivers. We can't just rely on regulators (they are swamped and have their own conflict of interests) to regulate worker rights, Unions are appropriate in many conditions.

There are lots of abusive industries where unions are needed to prevent exploitation of workers. I also acknowledge that the flip side of the coin is that in many areas unions have hurt companies - it's definitely a balance.

[vacri]

Doctors are incredibly politicised and senior doctors have no qualms throwing junior doctors under the bus (speaking demographically), in exactly the same way as pilots do.

A union doesn't work so well when there's sizable power differential between members, and that's the case with doctors. The political power of a senior consultant with tendrils into management is usually orders of magnitude more than that of a fresh graduate.