[Brain_Thief]

It seems obvious to me that there is a burning need for tech unionization and the reason has little to do with individual compensation or job security (although those are very important ancillary issues that deserve to be addressed and discussed as well). The real purpose that unionization could potentially serve is as a check against what people like Stallman and Bruce Schneier would perhaps call the mass exploitation associated with extreme surveillance capitalism. There are risks associated with unionization, of course, but collective bargaining offers one of the only proven mechanisms for average workers to impact the behavior of their employers. In the past, collective action was taken primarily as a means to improve the work conditions and compensation of average employees; as you point out, work conditions are generally very good for tech workers already, and so the improvement of working conditions isn't such an issue (although there is a good argument for organization as a means to preserve good conditions). I argue that in the case of tech employees, many of whom are involved in the development of systems that carry the potential for horrific misuse against vulnerable populations in the name of corporate profits, unionization is actually a moral imperative. Such unionization would represent a form of evolution in the history of collective action and employee organization, since it would be (at least in part) about challenging large-scale trends that run counter to the ideals of privacy, human rights, and equal society - things that can't be meaningfully impacted by individuals switching jobs. For instance, consider the case of challenging the pervasive use of privacy-violating adtech in products, or partnerships between corporations and authoritarian governments.

As tech workers, we are uniquely positioned within society: we have privileged knowledge of how the most powerful systems and products of the age function and we are incredibly close to the control surfaces of the major pillars of the economy. We are in demand, paid well, and generally well-educated. We have the ability to make a difference in the world in ways that very few people do. This is why organization is important.