I have seen harassment go south for the harasser, but the cases had one thing in common: The person that was being harassed had far more status than the harassers believed, so, in practice, they were spitting upwards. If high management believes you are the more valuable, likable party, you will win. If they don't, you will lose. Facts are relatively unimportant.
So the moral of the story is to make friends in high places. Depressing, but real.
Your much better off paying a lawyer than a union.
If we look at historical facts rather than your mothers anecdotes this is incredibly far from the truth.
Past Performance Is No Guarantee Of Future Results. These aren't the 1900's.
Anyways, that's just another anecdote, what are the historical facts?
Maybe just start with "history of worker rights." Or maybe just the wikipedia labor movement article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labour_movement It's not all strictly about changes forced through unions vs other types of activists, but once unions were made legal they were one of the strongest methods for demanding and enforcing these for large numbers of workers in the days before they were turned into laws.
a) two-day weekend
How is this a right? Some people want to work less; some want to work more. If it were forced by unions, forcing a two-day weekend stops people from working more.
b) paid holiday
Same; not everyone wants paid holidays as opposed to getting more money in their pockets.
c) minimum wage
The minimum wage stops less skilled people from working; this especially affects blacks and teenagers. I see the minimum wage as a negative effect of unions (nobody wants their job to be replaced by a cheaper worker).
d) Again, not everyone wants to work an 8-hour day. Poor people want to work more and other people want to work in different schedules (like a 3 day week).
It is not clear to me why a), b), and d) can't be achieved without unions if people wanted those 3.
I have no problem with people having a), b), and d) voluntarily and unions persuading people and employers for those causes; but I don't want workers to be forced to have those three (there's no free lunch--these worker "rights" come at the expense of the worker's salary).
c) Is actually an interesting subject and personally I do not agree with having a minimum wage and I feel that the purpose of introducing it was to undermine unions. There is a lot more to say about min wage but this comment thread is probably not the place for it. The rest of your post is, objectively, nonsense.
Also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_history_of_the_United_St...
Try "historical benefits of unions".
To paraphrase most anti-union people's favorite refrain, "Nobody is making you work someplace that requires union dues."
You can find plenty of cases where union reps have disputed sexual harassment claims.
the tech industry does NOT need a union.
what could hypothetically be argued is the need for the equivalent of the medical board, or bar, or cpa, cfa, engineering license, etc. and it would be a legitimate debate, but no clear cut answer exists.
you'll note that all of those bodies have ethics and competency standards and none of them are unions, meaning none of them negotiate contracts on behalf of their constituent members.
i DO NOT (DO _NOT_) want a union negotiating my business relationships for me, and exclude me from my own industry if i refuse to let them.
The tech industry absolutely doesn't need unions /s