> These days I definitely believe that something needs to take up the role of fighting for the rights of labor, but I remain skeptical that unions, at least as they exist in the US, are the right tool for the job.

What would you say are the highest salaried professions in the US outside of management/executive roles that would obviously not be a part of unions? I think most Americans would probably list athletes and actors close to the top (if not literally the first two), both of which famously have powerful unions.

The highest paid MLB player in the last year before the union in 1965 was $105,000, which after inflation maps to around $1,110,066.67 in 2026 USD, but the minimum salary for MLB players for the 2026 season is $780,000, and the highest individual salary is $61,875,000. If you think that the union isn't demonstrably an effective tool for having achieved huge increases in salaries for players across the board at both the highest and lowest skill levels, I'd argue the burden of proof is on you, because you'd be arguing against the obvious interpretation of the history in the decades following the establishment of the union.

At absolute best, I feel like you could argue that unions are a mixed bag and some of them do more harm than good, but it's not clear why that wouldn't be an equally compelling argument against pretty much every other type of organization in our economy. There are plenty of corporations that have inflicted absolutely massive amounts of harm to society (many at levels I'd argue no union has ever come anywhere close to), but I've yet to meet anyone who's expressed skepticism at the concept of unions to have similar opinions about the concept of corporations. It's hard not to feel like people just give disproportionate weight to anecdotes about unions than they do for other economic entities because of how effectively they've been painted as the boogeyman by anti-labor propaganda.

In Belgium unions exist across industries except for the railway and I think army unions. So I being a programmer can be in the same union as a street sweep. There's also mutliple that compete with eachother (most of which with political alignments tho they tend to coopeerate and organise togheter in many scenarios) and fees are very low. They have additional functions too though which are more debated.

So, the company was in trouble and the adults understood that. They probably wanted to fight to make sure they didn't lose their 401ks or pension, or be able to hold onto some insurance so the c suite didn't gut the company and leave everyone high and dry. Sounds like you just generally didn't understand the situation, being a kid.

> There is no such thing.

There really is! I've been in three unions, every place I worked. The first and third one existed beforehand, while I helped start the second.

A union is a group of people—and like any group, your influence is what you make it to be.

You're comparing unions that cover short-term contracts (film production, MLB) with "blue-collar unions" that represent hourly or salaried long-term employment contracts.

Is it any surprise that people who work as salaried employees would presume a union at their workplace would be structured and behave more like a "blue collar" union than not?

Call it an association or guild or something other than a union. Lawyers and doctor have unions but they don't call it that.

> ICE can also do "exactly what you wish it to do"

What?

Unless you are Congress, you can't create ICE at your workplace. You can, however, create a union.

Arguably, we do - at least the 8k people being fired at Meta and the 7k being told to drop everything and work on AI likely did need one.

It really depends on the union, mine concentrate on less hours for a salary that follow inflation, parental leaves and a gold plated drug insurance. I work 32.5 hours per week in the summer, have 24 days off, 2 personal days and 12 statutory holidays; that's 36 paid days off !

Everything is political. Politics have been heavily intertwined with work forever. The history of unions is intertwined with literal government violence.

Negotiations for compensation is like the least life-impacting thing a union can do. Tech workers are well paid and capable of negotiating.

Things like work hours, quality of life, paid leaves, etc are important and can’t really be negotiated by the individual. Every labor victory from yesterday is the status quo but every future one is politics.

The cool thing about a union is that you actually can have a say in what political battles they fight

You just can't do that if you only want to be a passive member

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