[xyzzy123]

These "unions" in high paying fields behave more like guilds or cartels than worker's unions - they generally restrict supply. Athletes and Hollywood unions are sort of special cases too, IMHO. I don't think it's reasonable to claim that top earners in those fields earn so much because of their unions - they benefit from natural supply restriction of outliers.

For unions to be as effective in tech as for say pilots or doctors, you'd have to agree on a way to restrict supply (H1B restrictions, more licensing and credentialling etc) to give the union leverage. You have to control the supply taps and rate limit entry to the field.

I think it's hard to say if this would net out better for workers than the current arrangements, which are already the best in the world on nearly every metric.

It also seems like there's a timing issue - if tech workers DID successfully unionise enough to withhold a meaningful fraction of labour, the gains might ultimately end up in the market cap of AI companies via substitution.

[LPisGood]

I don’t think pilots unions do much to restrict supply.

[xyzzy123]

Structurally the way it works is that the AMA or ALPA or what have you lobby for regulations that just so happen to limit supply, and heavily push back whenever anyone proposes regulations that would loosen it, usually on safety / quality grounds.

There are also revolving doors between the regulator and the relevant professional bodies.

I'm pro union in cases where employers are a monopsony and workers have few options - it completely makes sense for coal miners in a coal town to form a union to even things out. I just don't think US tech right now meets the conditions for it to make sense, the market is too liquid for employers to capture all the upside.

US tech workers have real problems and complaints - PTO, maternity leave, health care to start - but these feel to me more like structural features of the US labour market? It makes more sense to me that these should be subject to national regulation rather than specific advantages for tech workers carved out by a union.

[xboxnolifes]

If you wait until you lose your leverage to unionize, you may not get to unionize.