To characterize unions-- especially contemporary unions in the United States-- as limited strictly to collective action functions, is factually incomplete and wrong. That unions perform other functions and aim to protect workers in other ways beyond collective action should be a totally uncontroversial statement.

Although unions proximately came into existence for the purpose of taking collective action against oppressive employers, it's equally true, and at least as important, to understand that they came into existence in order to fill a regulatory vacuum in labor law.

This should prompt some important questions:

1. Should the job of protecting workers from employers properly belong to any entity other than the government?

2. Is filling the regulatory vacuum with regulation theoretically or empirically insufficient to protect workers?

3. Are unions the only means of collective action?

4. Are the functions that unions serve beyond coordinating collective action actually necessary in order to protect workers? Would they still be necessary even if labor law was sufficiently well regulated?

My position is this: We should dramatically expand and increase labor regulation and enforcement actions, and we should allow employees to take collective action. Then we should ask ourselves whether unions are still necessary.

California already has laws that protect employees. Google and other tech companies are abusing loop holes in these laws by calling would-be employees "contractors" to get out of paying them benefits and providing job security.

Many professions that tend to be highly individualistic and require complex mastery have historically been represented by a Guild. While Guilds these days are sometimes a specialized form of union, the distinctions are often significant. A couple examples that come to mind are the American Bar Association, the American Medical Association, the Screen Actors Guild, and the Writers Guild of America.

Well, at least in the case of SAG and the WGA, those are essentially just white-collar unions. Neither of those groups would describe themselves as pro-organizing, but opposed to unions.