Here in the UK the union leaders manage to look like tits all on their own.
I'd love to have a workable union system for tech workers here, but I just don't see what they offer unless you can persuade meaningful numbers of your coworkers to sign up.
While I don't disagree on your main points, I will mention that there is a UK union (Prospect) for tech workers which is not politically aligned and sensible. (Disclaimer: I'm a member)
Would they though? From what I understood Google has a workplace that heavily leans towards one political side in the US. It seems to even have been used to shame people to stay in line. What's the chance that something similar wouldn't happen with this Union?
Even voicing the opinion that Right to Work is a good idea causes the pro-union folks to act like they're going rabid, acting like you're trying to tear down their entire world. Passing a Right to Work law is, in the eyes of many, a flat out attack on unions and an act of union busting.
Rendering the contracts that unions sign with employers unenforceable is pretty much the definition of union busting.
It's explicitly about preventing two consenting parties (union + employer) from freely entering into a contract.
Oddly enough there are some (libertarians) people who consider the right to enter into a contract freely pretty sacrosanct, but I've yet to hear one complain about this law.
And that will stop people from shaming you on social media how? All you need to harm someone is to send a Twitter mob at them. If your union becomes political enough then toy can just do that, just like Google did.
In political terms most Google employees are centrists, wet one nation troy or Eisenhower era Republicans.
And Prospect is explicitly not "Political" with the Big P i.e. aligned with a particular party - in fact almost all Professional unions are as they have members of all political parties
I think this is the big problem, I was in the steelworkers union in Canada before going into tech and it made a lot of sense. It was a dangerous job and management was constantly trying to go around safety rules, so it made sense that we had a union to both fight for fair wages + safety practices. It was fairly cheap (vaguely remember it being $20ish/pay period) too.
I'm not sure tech has a similar need, wages are (generally) high, I would say safety is generally not a concern or where it is (data centers w/ noise), it's usually taken seriously. It's a hard sell.
On our case in France, we have one of the lowest union rate of the developed world (yes even lower than in the US). A lot of unions are mostly still stuck in the communist past and turns out workers don't feel represented by them anymore.
> I'd love to have a workable union system for tech workers here, but I just don't see what they offer unless you can persuade meaningful numbers of your coworkers to sign up
That's what organizing is. Take personal reaponsability and form or join a union together. It's not something you do on your own and that in fact can be dangerous.
I'd love to have a workable union system for tech workers here, but I just don't see what they offer unless you can persuade meaningful numbers of your coworkers to sign up.