Cherry picking can go both ways. National economies are complex, and what works in one country can fail in another. There is zero point in generalizing.
It’s possible that unions are great for average and below employees, but they appear to be a pretty sour deal for everyone used to big tech income in the US.
You can fill the blank with the name of literally any country on earth and the sentence will still be correct. Tech salaries in the US are a huge outlier. There is not a single other country on earth where ICs can earn remotely as much as they do in the US tech hubs. Even US top companies don't pay remotely as much in their non-US offices.
If you use the same argument then how do they make the world's top luxury cars with "average and below" union workers?
You should look elsewhere for reasons why Brazil is relatively poor today. I guarantee you unions have very little to do with it.
Just curious, who would that be? I am guessing some Scandinavian countries, maybe?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_agreement_coverage
France, Austria, Belgium, Iceland, and Sweden all have above 90% collective bargaining coverage. Finland, Denmark, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Australia, Luxembourg, Switzerland, and Germany are between 50% and 90%.
You have bigger companies vs many smaller companies. Unions and big companies go hand in hand.
Sarcasm aside, it's really disturbing to see amazing countries like the USA falling for the same illusions that have kept us poor since forever. What defeats bad bosses is the option for workers to simply walk away, be it because of competitors offering better conditions or because you don't really need the income in the short term.
If your are left wing inclined, I suggest that you lobby UBI instead of unions.
Be better than us.