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Comment by chrisseaton | Hacker News Reader

'Just don't join' doesn't work. Unions often bully or ostracise people who refuse to join. Sometimes they're in practice closed-shops, like the Screen Actors' Guild, even though this isn't supposed to be allowed in law. In some cases unions use violence against 'scabs' and other people who resist.

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I like how a non-existent tech union is instantly popping up out of nowhere with both a massive bureaucracy, and a squad of enforcers to beat people up for not joining.

Please, stop bringing up historical anecdotes as reasons why a tech union wouldn't work. It's funny how you don't bring up things like strong health care and training as anecdotes on the other side.

The question of whether or not there will be "union shops" or not is still yet to be seen. Whether or not there would be is a question of the union and the employers (i.e. TBD).

If kickstarter is an example then they forced 37 persons to join it, so it is correct to fear unions forcing you to join.

"with 46 employees voting in favor of the move and 37 opposing it".

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/18/technology/kickstarter-un...

A vote on formation of a union does not mean employees are forced to join it. A union also doesn't mean anything if there isn't an agreement with the employer. A union also doesn't mean anything if it's members are not going to withhold their services if they don't come to an agreement that is deemed acceptable by it's members.

Unions are also about leveraging power. While someone can try to start a union with any number of people, how much they can actually negotiate is going to hinge a lot on that number. Is 55% of the workforce enough to have significant leverage? I don't know and it depends on what the union wants. Would the union be able to reach an agreement with the employer that would force the others to join the union? That would seem like quite a stretch to me.

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