The industry, points out AFL-CIO's secretary-treasurer Liz Shuler, boasted sales 3.6 times greater than those of the film industry in 2018, yet much of that financial success isn't felt by the developers working on the games that generate those billions.

So let's take a look at that. How has unionizing helped income equality in the film industry? Apparently not much, as two of the five companies with the worst CEO to median worker pay ratio [usatoday.com] are film studios, and a third is a TV studio.

If you look through that list, you get the sense that the presence of robust competition within the industry is the important factor, not unions. About a third of the companies on that list enjoy IP monopolies (copyrights, patents) or regulatory monopolies (ISPs). And several of the remainder have close to a natural monopoly.

Look at German unions, intimately tied to the businesses their workers are employed. The business’ welfare is the union’s welfare. Less stupid shit happens.

Mega unions like AFL-CIO not so much. The big wigs in it aren’t working stiffs at the same places themselves but just political whores. They have so many businesses under their belt, they strike and the employees suffer because the business dies, they don’t care because they think they proved a point. It’s just trading one master for another.

The game industry needs to unionize but the workers don’t need a new master.

Doing so, however, would be a lie.

Vlad30 nailed it in his post and had his Score not already been maxed out, I would have tossed some mod points his way.

I've worked within the confines of a Unionized company for more than twenty years now and, to be honest, they impress me less and less every year. Thankfully / hopefully, I will retire from this circus soon.

When contract negotiations begin, Union Leadership will fight tooth and nail for two things:

1) Maintaining or adding head count
2) Pay raises for their members

While the hard core Unionites will disagree with me, the Union fights for the above for one reason only: Getting one or both ultimately leads to more Union Dues being paid to the Union. ( #1 is obvious, #2 is because Union Dues are a percentage of a Union Members base pay. So a pay raise for the member = a pay raise for the Union )

That's it. That's all. That is the ONLY goal the Union has. Make. More. Money.

This is why our healthcare premiums keep increasing every year because the Union doesn't give a damn about how much their members have to pay out of pocket for health insurance. As long as they get their dues, everything is golden. No one seems to notice that their meager annual raise gets negated by the rising health care premiums.

Sometimes I wonder if the Union has a secret agreement with the company during negotiations to get that paltry raise and / or headcount in exchange for allowing the company to dump more of its healthcare costs on their employees. The Union doesn't lose anything in the process, so it's a Win-Win for them. Not so much for the employees though.

That said, the other problem with Unionizing is mediocrity.

The Rockstars will do their thing for a while, until they ask themselves why they're busting their ass while the Idiot ( who doesn't even know how to turn his computer on without help ) is making the exact same pay and benefits. Eventually, they give up, scale back their efforts and their light doesn't shine quite as brightly as it used to.

On the flip side, the Idiot realizes he doesn't really need to bust his ass like the Rockstar does since they are making the same pay and benefits. There isn't any motivation or incentive here to learn or increase their productivity because, in a Union, there can't be a pay / benefit difference for those performing the same work. This person does just enough so they don't get fired.

As a result, over time, the performance of any given group tends to trend downwards towards the Idiot side of things. They meet somewhere in the middle and you end up with a team who is mediocre at best.

The final insult is when the layoffs start. Once Unionized, your amazing Rockstar skills are irrelevant. The only thing that matters is Seniority. Whomever has been there the longest, will have the most Seniority. Layoffs start from the least Senior and work their way up to the top. So if you're a Rockstar who has been there for five years, but the Idiot has been there longer, guess who gets the axe first ? :|

Once upon a time, the Unions definitely had their place in the working world. These days, however, I think they've been corrupted by the money they bring in and the idea that they represent their members is merely a smokescreen for their true agenda.

That being: Make as much money as they can at the expense of those they're pretending to represent.