The prisoners dilemma shows that everyone is incentivized against unions. Unions however, would solve this. You just need a mechanism to stop union cronyism.
The point is HR is always acting in the interest of the company first (if you're surprised, you're probably young and work at a tech megacorp) and if the interests of employees are aligned with these (again, usually the case at tech megacorps), all is fine and dandy. Unions are needed when those interests start to diverge as individual employees have basically zero negotiating power and it's in the interest of the company to exploit that to the maximum legally achievable level - pure game theory.
IOW I see the perfect union as an HR-but-for-employees department. Real unions are obviously broken by individuals exploiting unions they're part of.
However there are plenty of workarounds employed by companies anyway.
Aren't Silicon Valley programmers in the top 1% for total household income?
People on HN give me the impression that graduates with no experience get paid six figures and it's considered poverty level.
If you think anything in this thread is implying salaried tech workers are trying to pass themselves off as poor I probably can't communicate with you on any level. I apologize for whatever rhetoric I used.
And I'm not anti-union, any group has the right to organize for any purpose in free societies. Even libertarians like Ron Paul are pro-union.
Of course its technically illegal, but reality could be harsh.
Top performers may be concerned about having their wings clipped. Hollywood is a good counter-example. But American auto unions, for example, created the precedent of a rush to mediocrity. (The politics of many American union organisers may also gives someone earning a top Silicon Valley wage pause.)
How?