[nickpinkston]

Though you'll need to deduct a lot of SG&A, etc. overheads from that as well, and it often looks far worse.

Big Tech companies (ie ones close to monopolies) still extract a ton of net cash flow that ends up going to investors and top management, though you could then ask why those monopolies extract cash from their customers as well, etc.

My worry with tech unionization is that generally it slows productivity increases and change. I get why bus drivers, etc. in stable systems should organize and could do so without adversely affecting system performance, but in tech/startups, I don't think those companies would exist in unionized form for very long before being put out of business.

Now they're just saddled with too much bureaucracy and politics, and that's already led most of them to underperform, at least on an innovation basis.

[nielsbot]

> My worry with tech unionization is that generally it slows productivity increases and change.

Do you have examples?

> Now they're just saddled with too much bureaucracy and politics, and that's already led most of them to underperform, at least on an innovation basis.

Who?

[nickpinkston]

Yea, it's more complicated than that, but in the US context unionization (like in the automotive and steel industries) was shown to slow innovation. [1]

The counter to this is that Europe actually has better outcomes because it takes a more collaborative approach vs. the adversarial approach in the US, and this better approach has shown to improve some outcomes.

[1] https://www.fraserinstitute.org/sites/default/files/Unioniza...

[nielsbot]

The linked paper is strongly biased towards the ownership class--and the think tank is labeled "libertarian-conservative" on wikipedia, so I'm skeptical of the conclusions.

[nickpinkston]

Yea, almost anyone in the US asking about the productivity implications of unionization will be coming from the ownership class, as US unions don't see that as their problem vs. building worker power.

I couldn't find a paper about US unions increasing productivity. Can you?

[nielsbot]

Fair. And I didn't look for other papers. If the discussion is simply "unions decrease productivity" however that's defined, that may be true. But by how much? Is that a problem? To whom?

I suspect unionization is better for more people overall.