[jkaplowitz]

I used to work at Google. Without going into specifics in this public of a forum, yes I've personally witnessed examples of unjustified pay disparities, due to arbitrary factors uncorrelated with job qualifications or performance.

At the very least, collective assistance could be very useful at Google in negotiating fair compensation for new hires and in sustaining that fairness over time based on performance data.

After all, Google has huge quantities of data to let them decide on compensation, the employees have extremely little and unevenly distributed access to similar data, and it doesn't feel like there is much opportunity to recover lost wages if you realize you've been underpaid compared to peers (aside from discrimination on illegal grounds).

I presume the same would help at other tech companies.

None of this requires the stereotypical fossilized rigidity that give unions a bad name, and I wouldn't want that either. Even in the US NLRA system that's not at all required.

[LanceH]

Won't unions level out pay contrary to disparities in talent?

[jkaplowitz]

I think you're referring to the fossilized rigidity I intended to reject in my last two sentences. A rigid pay scale is merely common in US unionism, not required.

Also, be careful not to confuse talent with performance. A slacker with amazing talent can still underperform whoever works diligently to improve and apply their skills.

[Apocryphon]

As with other situations such as the insistence on face-time rather than embracing remote work, "unions are bad" is a truism in the tech industry, and a weird selective attitude towards disruption. Can't we build a better union? Why can't traditional labor dynamics be disrupted, in a way that benefits workers? The rise of the sharing economy proves that the opposite is possible.