Adding a union often does because it changes the power dynamics. In this conversation, Cloudflare holds all of the cards and most people will accept their terms because they don’t want to lose healthcare or severance pay, and they probably say things confident that they will not be challenged to back those claims up.

A union won’t make the managers setting policies better human beings but it puts them in a context where there’s a party who has more power to push back, and can afford things like lawyers. It also means that they have things like union contracts saying that, for example, you can’t fire someone for performance without proof and warning such as a negative review and time to improve. Simply knowing they’ll have to follow the process is often enough to rein in the worst abuses.