It's clear that companies like Google are most scared of one thing - workers coming together to put pressure on the company. Should make every worker question their own and the company's motivations. https://www.vice.com/en/article/pkdqaz/lazy-money-oriented-single-mother-how-union-busting-firms-compile-dossiers-on-employees
Workers constantly come together to put pressure on these companies even without unions
Yep, they do. But if you look at past experience at Google (arguably company with most vocal workers), the impact has been scant, and retaliation heavy. No guarantees that this current union will be successful in changing that, but there are reasons to be optimistic. Firstly, even at 500 odd people (and growing), it's a larger organized group than any before, by a mile. The ability to bring together TVCs (contractors) is a huge deal that most people don't give enough credit to. And then you have the ability to protect workers that no previous effort could do in the same way. It's gonna take time and a lot of work, and we'll see real change happen no doubt.
Good point
Unions are/were needed in certain industries and times. The workers who want to unionize better be careful what they wish for. The union workers in Boeing got screwed
Yeah, most people don't realize how much of a risk union organizing actually is. That said, one might also hope that this provides a better platform for workers to raise concerns, compared to what existed before (nothing).