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Comment by axutio | Hacker News Reader

I think the idea is that you form the union when you have leverage and don't need it so that if you ever lose leverage as an individual in the future (e.g. if the developer labor market becomes oversaturated or demand for developers tanks), you will still have some leverage as a member of the collective.

Seems kind of like insurance - you pay for it when you don't need it so that you have it when you do.

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Oh, I get the idea. We're just talking about a situation described by the commenter above where the union is already formed. It is apparently unable to provide any substantial benefit except the hope that it might be useful at a future date.

This leads me to wonder if it's really doing anything of value for the workers it's supposed to be defending, supporting, and empowering. Like the insurance policy that you suspect will be cancelled the first time you try to make a claim.

This is generally why Insurance is more regulated in certain industries, eg. Motor vehicle insurance can’t drop you because the get a claim about how you totaled someone else’s Lamborghini. Are there similar protections that regulate unions themselves?

Yes. Unions are tightly regulated under the NLRA and by the NLRB, both of which constrain their collective bargaining powers, right to form, etc.

Car insurance companies can very much drop you if they deem you to high of a risk.

But they can’t drop you to avoid paying a claim if you have insurance.

If demands for developers sink - aren’t you screwed anyway? How often in the history of labor have unions ever kept companies from just outsourcing? Did it help employees in the car market?

My solution for 25 years as always been to change jobs.

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