> No such thing. They are being paid by someone.

Having a union represent you at work is like having a lawyer represent you at court. Sure some rugged individualists choose to represent themselves pro se, but we all know how smart that is.

Right. So it's good to have someone on your side.

Speaking of payments: I was actually amazed to find out how much certain union leaders make. Some of them are in the top 1%, with yearly salaries of over $400,000. [1]

[1] https://laborpains.org/2018/06/04/union-president-pay-watch-...

For reference-- that's $318,160 more than Jeff Bezos' salary. That's insane.

How is a union able to pay that much to their leader on the one hand, yet completely unable to help defend this Amazon employee against an abusive manager?

If journalists focused on developer unions for even a fraction of the time they spend criticizing Amazon, I'd bet we'd have some blogs that sound just as damning as the one the author has written.

The bulk of Bezos's compensation is all in his equity.

Sure, but that's because the company is doing better. If it stagnated then he would only make base salary. If the union does their job poorly the Union leader still gets paid.

> How is a union able to pay that much to their leader on the one hand, yet completely unable to help defend this Amazon employee against an abusive manager?

Are you saying the Amazon has a developer union that could have helped defend this employee? Citation needed. AFAIK, developer unions have been advocated for, but don't actually exist (in a functional form, in the US at least).

...which is pennies compared to tech CEO salaries.

You're right, but please consider this: unions leaders are paper shufflers, bureaucrats, whereas tech CEOs are doers, risk takers and innovators; big difference.

Depends on the tech CEO. A lot of them seem to be mainly concerned with 'innovating' the stock price higher.

Also, union leaders aren't bureaucrats.

Also, bureaucrats serve a useful function.

> You're right, but please consider this: unions leaders are paper shufflers, bureaucrats, whereas tech CEOs are doers, risk takers and innovators; big difference.

There's actually not a big difference, after one factors out the remarkable level of spin you've worked into your characterizations.

> Speaking of payments: I was actually amazed to find out how much certain union leaders make. Some of them are in the top 1%, with yearly salaries of over $400,000.

If you object that people in large-organization senior management roles can make that much, you won't believe what many corporate CEOs make. It'll blow your mind!

https://laborpains.org/:

> LaborPains is a joint blog of the Center for Union Facts and the Enterprise Freedom Action Committee.

> We expose the truth about labor unions and the pain they impose upon free enterprise.

So, basically garbage anti-union propaganda. You might as well have just linked this video https://youtu.be/ONKkoiszVSs?t=17.