But what are you negotiating about? What do all tech workers have in common that wouldn't be better addressed with top level regulations like "right to disconnect"?
The outsized pay for software engineers in the US takes into account a lot of this stuff. Would you trade those 100 things for, say, a salary of $75k a year for a senior software engineer, like they have in Europe?
Meh. The rest of the world also doesn't have big salaries for software devs. The US is the outlier.
It's not just the labor regulations holding Europe back, it's the lack of funding due to not having a unified European digital market.
Netflix Europe needs to have 20+ licensing deals. Selling across Europe at a large scale requires interactions with 20+ legal teams. Language and cultural barriers kill a lot of things.
How do US giants thrive in Europe, then?
Because they come in directly giant-sized based on growth in the US. They either ignore European legal compliance until sued or pay peanuts for them to handle all the legal aspects.
All those sorts of protections seem like they make sense for every worker rather than being "tech" specific. I do understand that collective bargaining could help with carving out sector-specific deals, though.
I wonder if there is a difference in context that explains why we might disagree. I'm in Australia where I think it's politically easier to "add" broad top level protections for all workers than it would be in the US.
Yeah, the legal framework (Taft-Hartley) in the US is pretty explicit about banning general strikes and solidarity strikes. A union can organize within a single industry but not beyond that.
The fundamental point of the union is to be able to negotiate as a group. That is valuable regardless of the industry.