It's not a huge stretch to imagine the following scenario play out though:

1. Tech workers unionize, negotiate with employer that any work > 40 hours / week get paid overtime.

2. The company now has two choices: A) Pay their employees more than their competitors for the same work. Or B) Don't authorize any overtime.

3. In scenario A, they're either running at (much) higher cost than their competitors, and thus a disadvantage. In Scenario B, they're either slower to ship products, or there's a bunch of "off the books" work done by engineers trying to ship things anyways (which is basically the status quo today, except now it would cost you 1% of your salary).

I could see the first scenario potentially attracting better talent for the significantly higher pay in the short term. But it's also a perverse incentive structure where if my 8 hours of work suddenly takes 9 hours, I get paid more, so why would I finish it early? Oh and because I'm in a union, it's now much harder to get rid of me, even if I'm half-assing it.

Why is it harder to fire people that don't meet performance standards of they're in a union? Which union members are striking to support poorly performing colleagues aren't union members and bosses aligned here - in general people don't want to carry their colleagues (if they're performing badly because they're lazy/incapable)?

One unfortunate consequence in A is that it may cause the unscrupulous to delay work in order to work overtime at a higher rate. This was sometimes an issue with (non-software) maintenance

Salaried employees usually get paid straight time for overtime rather than time and a half. (That's my personal experience - I've always been paid straight time for overtime) That at least takes away one incentive to delay work to work overtime - you still get paid more, but you don't increase your hourly rate.

Maybe B) will lead to fewer poorly-run projects that lead to unnecessary overtime.

B) is basically what we have already. Contractually only required to work 40 hour weeks, no [official] pressure from management to work more, but anyone who does will most likely have higher output / receive better performance bonuses and recognition, etc.

The only thing a union brings to the table in this situation is now I'm either explicitly forbidden from working more on a project even if I want to, or I have to hide what I'm doing and go all cloak-and-dagger about it, probably breaking some kind of labor laws in the process. All for 1% of my salary. Doesn't seem like a good trade for me?

It seems like in the scenario B) has the added teeth of deterring leadership from forcing unpaid overtime, as some management do, though it is possible even with the union-enacted mandate they will still try to sneak it in, as you suggested.

> I'm either explicitly forbidden from working more on a project even if I want to

This sort of nitpicking is always cited as a reason for why unions are bad but would a union really get up in your case over something like that? And furthermore, would a tech union birthed natively in this industry, created and populated by tech workers who have also worked spent evenings or weekends voluntarily to work on projects they themselves were passionate enough to finish, really penalize its all members for doing the same? Wouldn't they, you know, have an insider's insight of the needs and interests of working in tech?

I think not. The idea is to guard against when management oversteps its boundaries, not to police other workers. And if the union inevitably does fall short and do the latter, then by being part of a union, you would have the power to make changes within it.

To be fair, there are other avenues to fix this. I came into a job that just settled a lawsuit over this for the very small number on non-union workers it applied to. From then on, that small group received increased overtime pay despite being non-union