I'm not usually pro-union, but if there is any industry that needs to be unionized it's game development.
I would argue that the product would only improve if it's harder to enter, but someone can have a 30 year career instead of a 5 year crunchfest. Who knows though.
Acting, stage acting, not Hollywood, is actually where I'm most familiar with this through friends. If you want to be an actor, move to NYC, and try to find a role, you get sent to the back of the line at every audition and probably they don't even get to you. There was another way in (this may be outdated now) where you got points towards joining by working for certain employers. That's why some of my friends played characters for an abusive boss at a now defunct space travel theme restaurant - just for points to join the union
Planet Hollywood?
The only way to get into the union is to be nominated by someone who is already in. The only way to get seen by those people is to work in adjacent jobs to acting, or get lucky and get on a small film with both union and non-union actors.
Once you're in the union it's great. It's a great example of how to form a union for creative people that mandates minimum pay and working conditions but no maximum, allowing for stars to get huge checks while making sure everyone gets good conditions and living wages.
About 10 seconds of googling would have told you that is wrong.
Actors union is a definite barrier to entry: you need to either be a notable independent actor/performer (rare), get a job on a SAG AFTRA because you have a talent that they can't find in union (rare), or show that you've worked in the field (non-union commercials/films) enough to be notable. Then you need to apply, pay $3k, pay ~$200 a year dues, and give up ~1.5% of all your contracts to the union. Then you can't take a non-union job (again restricting the talent pool).
I honestly don't see a ton of difference between the two: both establish choke points and collective bargaining in high demand fields to improve working conditions for the people that are in the union.
When I started in the industry I couldn't afford a bed on my salary for about a year, and I only got my "in" by having a lot of experience doing indie development during high school and college - many people don't have the free time and resources to build up that portfolio.
Though, it might be easy for me to say this, because I naturally delineate my passion from my paycheck.
I'm trying to figure out how else to interpret "move to other areas of the industry".
Unions are fine, but can take a long time. In the meanwhile individual action is still available.
Just like individuals are free to boycott certain nations products or services before official sanctions are put into place. Sanctions(unions) would have a larger impact, but people still have options before that happens.
An important point here is that the skills are easily transferrable to other areas of the tech world. It's not like asking a carpenter to become a metalworker.
The fix is to fix the workplaces.
The game developer could just move out to the suburbs and commute alongside the construction worker (construction happens downtown[1], and those workers sure as shit aren't living anywhere nearby).
1 - Pick your major city.
You don't just get to go to new places just because you are a construction worker. I think you might be viewing it through a somewhat romantic lens.
Here in DC, teachers earn more the closer to the city they work and typically live further out than they work to save on housing.
Software is a bit of an anomaly here - some of the best paying jobs are out on the edge of the suburbs because that’s where AOL and Network Solutions and several other “OG” dot-coms were started. And AWS, Google, and others have since opened offices nearby.
Source: When I quit game dev, I got a 60% raise and I was on the higher end of the pay scale at that game dev job. I know lead developers with nearly 10 years of experience making under 70k in games. I frequently offer them roles that would double their salary and they turn it down because they like working in games.
The pay, especially at studios, is very low by software engineering standards (only embedded is worse) and people can and constantly are hurt at the job. Divorces, alcoholism, and burnout are so common in the industry that they are just accepted and joked about. And I've seen real burnout. Like not being able to read properly after a couple all nighters, anxiety disorders from pagerduty, becoming fully despondent. Mental work is still work and overwork is still hurtful.