Comment by marcus_holmes

I think your model of how unions work has been heavily influenced by negative publicity.

Unions do not lock down job roles, or enforce collective bargaining, or any of the rest of it, if their members don't want it.

Unions are like the anti-HR. Exactly like when the other side of a negotiation lawyers up, you want a lawyer on your side of the table. Unions are the HR person on your side of the table.

I'm a startup founder and I can definitely see a point where we'd encourage union membership. I want my staff to be happy and productive. I'd love to have someone I could talk to regularly who was very much a representative of my staff. Of course I'd continue talking to all of them individually as well, but having a single person tasked with telling me any bad news would be great.