I am pretty sure that union is not the most significant part why pay is high here.
"We're all pretty sure of that. Where did you dream up this straw man?" is just the kind of provocation that produces that kind of discussion, though.
One thing to keep in mind is that most of us underestimate the provocation in our own posts (let's say by 10x) and overestimate the provocation in others' posts (let's say by another 10x) and that leads to quite a skew in perception [1]. I believe this is why everyone always feels like the other person started it / did worse [2]. Objects in the mirror are closer than they appear! [3]
[1] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
[2] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
[3] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
I suspect that this drives wages high for highly paid individuals in sport and entertainment.
Note that stars in entertainment, in fields without unions also earn a lot.
Not compared to many unionized industries. Workers in professional sports and entertainment, for example, which fully embrace labor unions, make software developers look like they work for peanuts.
> Unions exist because workers were literally being killed by their employers.
Labor unions have formed when death was actually on the horizon because death was on the horizon, but labor unions today are almost exclusively a rich man's sport. The poor aren't poor enough to face certain death, but aren't rich enough to risk the consequences of not working (i.e. striking) for beneficial-but-not-life-threatning demands, so it is not a reasonable choice for them to make. Hence why you almost never find labor unions in low paying jobs.
Tech doesn't like unions simply because, as a group, tech doesn't like people. That's what a union is, after all: A group of people who have decided to associate with each other.