Unless it’s worse. The assumption that forming a union and entering into effectively hostile negotiations with the company will result in a better compensation is unfounded.

It varies by country and even in the US it varies by industry. A lot of European countries have a less adversarial relationship between organized labor and management and workers benefit greatly. Public sector unions in the US, and the teamsters, and Culinary in Las Vegas, etc. don't seem to leave their workers worse off either.

It's perfectly founded, because I have seen it happen. Back in the 80s was a Thatcher believer, still am really, but in the 90s I was a member of a moderate public sector union in the UK and saw it working from the inside. It was a real eye opener, the union had huge experience in health and safety (a significant issue in that organisation), the unintended side effects of various policies and procedures, all sorts of things and actually worked very well with management to represent legitimate concerns.

It doesn't always work, in some industries I can see the relationship is much more confrontational and damaging, but it doesn't have to be that way.

It can’t be “perfectly founded“ if it “doesn’t always work”.

> The assumption ... is unfounded.

Considering that many, many countries exist where this is the case (most of the time), this seems to be very well founded.

But they were in a country where the relationship has been bad since the beginning

I would say it's mostly better most of the time; they can go badly. Obligatory Futurama quote to illustrate the point:

> Hermes: So you're telling me I could fire my whole staff and hire Grunka Lunkas at half the cost?

> Glurmo: That's right. They think they have a good union but they don't. [whispering] They're basically slaves.

Says a guy who never bothered to learn labor history, but feels he must know better anyway because somebody pays him good money for something. HN in a nutshell.

I find it hard to believe anyone that knows anything about labor history in the US could assume that company/union relations can be assumed to go well.