It feels like fear mongering when there are no data to back it up (this is not a knock against your post, it’s a complaint against the argument against unionization).

If an org, under union influence, would do 15% to 400% salary increases year over year for their entire company/department, they'd likely go bankrupt. Yet that was possible on an individual level without a union in place. I didn't really mention it before but employers that treated their workers poorly were many times an asset to this method. That bad behavior drove away workers, meaning the bad employers would have to increase their salary offerings much higher to attract a worker to join even with the bad behaving employer. It also meant that the IT worker, who may not have been entirely qualified, would would have a shot at getting the position (and become qualified on the job). Once that that worker is qualified (after the year or two), they can take that knowledge and experience and jump ship to a good quality employer, gaining yet another with a big raise. The worker also just collapsed 5 to 10 years of slow career growth into 1 or 2 years.

I only know one person in a union and they have limited anecdotal data that shows that the cost of being in a union is offset by salary gains.

I'm guessing those quotes are about salary gains across a the entire company/department. This was nearly mercenary-mindset IT work. As in:

• Get in with the raise
• Learn the next thing you need
• Work the thing for a bit until you know it and have the experience and expertise at that employer
• Get out

Rinse repeat.

None of that is assisted with a collectivist union mindset or union implemented rules. Please correct me if I get any of the following union benefit bullet points wrong. As I understand it, the union would do everything to undo that situation. They'd:

• work to normalize pay across workers fairly.
• emphasize a proper work/life balance
• enforce conflict resolution with strong worker advocacy
• encourage/provide training across the company/department for continued competency among everyone
• establish rigid rules for promotion

IT has been a raging river, but if you were able to navigate it, you'd get to the end very quickly. You'd certainly come out with some cuts and bruises though. If getting to the end (comfortable money in our case) is what you were looking for, then it was the fastest way to it.