Don’t better working conditions attract better employees? If labor organization is the only way to achieve this (as you claim), wouldn’t companies be encouraging unionization to improve their competitiveness in the labor market?
I would rather negotiate on my own and save myself union dues. Unions are basically like a HOA, and I would never lock myself into one of those either.
If you don't trust your coworkers, then you're placing your trust in companies to make decisions for you. And that's why we're seeing the rise in unionization again because it hasn't worked out that well.
Why do I have to trust either of them? My coworkers often seem intent on doing as little work as possible. They are somewhere between bourgeois and champagne socialist. Management is comprised of the same people. I think many are just lazy and have gotten worse over the last two years.
Whereas for a carpenter definitely. Or working in construction, I'm going to be part of a union somewhere, if there isn't a union I'll go to where there is one, if it's small and weak make it larger and stronger. And work like fuck while inside it, I love doing that, doing perfect work and sweet alienation while working. It's just too dangerous without a union, one of the big wins a union gives you is workplace safety. That's not a fucking joke, bosses do try to push you into bad working conditions for marginal amounts of money, just scream at you to work faster, that's just wrong. I could have lost fingers working under the Chilean minimum wage. I could have damaged my spine working a bottling station alone with three people on the other side, rotating my back too much too fast (like do I have to be a fucking doctor to know that that's harmful, if it hurts the wrong way I have to deflect that work). And plus, the wages are much better with unions, you get better raises, and you can actually--get this--bring up win-win situations for the company without getting cheated out of your upside completely.
And I would love to pay Union dues. They're such little money, like nothing, like 1% or some meaningless shit? Even if they were 8%. The money you spend that you get nothing back from directly is the money that really gives you dignity. Like taxes, I love paying taxes too. Pay the fuck out of those taxes. Knock out those taxes.
Nope. Perception of better working conditions attracts better employees. Actually improving working condition is one way to boilster that perception but companies have found cheaper alternatives, like beanbag chairs and brand cults.
What you're describing there is intentionally or unintentionally capitalist propaganda. What this ignores is the extreme power imbalance between the employer and the employee. It also ignores human history where the improvements in labor conditions through the Industrial REvolution came through labor organization.
Maritime is a good example of how market forces don't work in the favor of worker safety. The Titanic is a famous example where there weren't enough lifeboats for everyone on board but that capped off centuries of ships that weren't seaworthy and other issues.
What really changed was in the 1970s many unions in the US had become bloated and corrupt. A famous example is Jimmy Hoffa continued to be paid $100,000/year as the union president from jail in the 1960s. The late 70s saw the rise of Thatcher in the UK and Reagan in the US. In the 1980s, labor unions were completely eviscerated. Thatcher in particular went on major union-busting efforts gainst the coal miners and the newspaper industry.
Is it really any surprise that real wages have remained stagnant since the 1980s? At what point are people going to realize that the only way to correct this is for labor organization?
Hairs can be split, but not on that.
In case software development change course the developers will be in a bad state for their ignorance of the world of the world outside the display :(