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It’s not like we can run an A/B on the benefits for every employee and every company, but I can speak for one particular industry and one company during one particular point in time: automobile manufacturing and Toyota. During the 2008 financial crisis, the perception at Toyota by many employees was that, while their wages were nominally lower than their counterparts at unionized companies, it made them more robust to the economic downturn, resulting in fewer layoffs of permanent workers. This is not to say that unionization didn’t have its place in the conversation. What I heard directly was that “the threat of unionization is enough for us to get the benefits and pay raises we ask for.”