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by elil17 1465 days ago
A free market is only fair if there are many labor purchasers and sellers. But when employers hold power (they are a major employer and they control many jobs in an area, they control your recommendations, the switching cost of changing jobs is too high) they can use that power to deflate wages below their fair market value. Unions create a level playing field to workers to negotiate with companies.
1 comments

Agree but tech is not like this. Especially with the rise of remote work. Unions can also hold down wages by reducing flexibility in conditions to suit different employees preferences.
A new tech union need not operate identically to the ones that came in the past. Heck, it might not even be called a “union”, given tech’s propensity to reinvent concepts under different branding. We have the benefit of over a century of historical expedience to improve how such an organization might operate. And already, not all existing unions are overly restrictive about their working condition stipulations.