Very few tech workers get incredible pay – most people do not work for a FAANG, and far from all of the ones who do are getting paid lavishly, especially after you account for hours & cost of living (note the downward pressure against wages for anyone not in SF). Not bad pay by any means but people still have to go to work every day and are living in upper middle class but not upper class houses, etc.

This is especially true relative to the business revenues generated. A union helps workers get more of the value they’re creating and also helps avoid things like companies using layoffs as a tactic to keep employees from negotiating aggressively.

It also helps with less visible things like age discrimination – very few people are going to retire by 45 no matter what they tell themselves at 25 – and non-cash benefits like parental leave or not being discriminated against for politics or not fitting in with some group. I’ve heard a lot of bad things about unions, and seen some firsthand (the Teamsters are self-destructive), but everywhere I’ve worked the union was a net win for workers and literally every one of the times someone publicly blamed the union for poor performing workers it was an attempt to shift blame from management failures.