I'm generally critical of the idea that unions and employers are collaborators in the labor market. It's a false representation of the employment relationship, and it causes unions to prioritize good relations with the employers over fighting for their members.

That's not to say the relationship can't be mutually beneficial. An organized workforce is a critical mechanism in a large organization, and employers benefit from having access to the input of their workers, particularly in times of crisis.
To explain what I'm talking about, I want to tell you about why we unionized at Avalanche.

Soundproof Open Doors

Spring 2023 was a rough time for Avalanche. Two projects—Call of the Wild: The Angler and Ravenbound—had recently released, both receiving what you might call a "tepid" response.
I didn't work on either project, but people who did told me the developers were aware the games hadn't been ready for release; when they said as much to project leadership, their concerns were either dismissed or ignored. The results were dire; The Angler managed to claw its way up to a "Mostly Positive" rating on Steam, but Ravenbound was essentially dead on arrival. The planned live-service game with a multi-year post-release development roadmap received a scant few patches to bring it to a "1.0" state before it was "sunset".

The developers were none too happy about this. At town hall meetings held in the aftermath of each release, several developers asked why leadership had insisted on releasing the games before they were ready. On both occasions, studio leadership claimed they hadn't even heard of developers' concerns. They even tried to blame the developers, saying it was our responsibility to go directly to them if we had concerns. The phrase "our doors are always open" was flung around a lot.
The developers had gone to management, of course. Repeatedly. Without being listened to. The doors might have been open, but the message wasn't getting through. Later, when disaster struck, leadership would shrug and claim innocence. Avalanche unionizing was in large part a response to this pattern; we were tired of leadership ignoring us, so we demanded a seat at the table.

Who Pulls The Red Handle?

In his book The Unaccountability Machine, economist Dan Davies analyzes the dysfunctional decision-making processes of large organizations. One of the problems he mentions is the lack of what he calls "red-handle signals"; ways for workers to let leadership know there are urgent issues that require their immediate attention. The name is an allusion to the emergency handles on trains; passengers use them to signal to the train driver that something is wrong, and that they should stop the train as soon as possible to address the issue.

In smaller organizations, red-handle signals from the workers can reach leadership quickly. But as organizations grow larger and more complex, workers' concerns must go through several layers of middle-managers—any one of whom might downplay or even dismiss them completely—before the information reaches those with the power to address the issue. Workers that try to bypass the chain of command are often ignored, and may even be punished for doing so.

The absence of these signals can be catastrophic for an organization. If leadership doesn't learn of urgent issues in their company as soon as they arise, they won't be able to adapt to the changes in circumstances.
In a game studio, leadership might realize their game isn't ready for release after they've already spent the marketing budget with the expected release date in mind. If they move the release date, they'll need to spend more money on marketing on top of the additional development cost. Some studios can (and do) bite the bullet, choosing to delay the game so it can release in a good state. But many studios—those without the budget to continue development, or where leadership doesn't understand the risks of releasing an unfinished game—decide to release anyway.
Releasing a game in an unfinished state is a terrible gamble; one in which the best-case outcome is that your sales aren't hurt too much by the premature release. The worst-case is, of course, that your game is dead on arrival.

What are large organizations to do? As I described above, the chain of middle-management is too slow (and too prone to failure) to carry red-handle signals. Leadership can urge workers to come directly to them if their concerns are severe, but this is a tenuous solution; the experience we had at Avalanche shows just how much an "open-door policy" is worth, and many workers—due to lack of trust, or fear of reprisal—aren't comfortable going directly to leadership anyway.

Some other mechanism is needed. People with a direct line to leadership, who the workers trust to share their concerns. People who can speak freely without fear of reprisal.

Enter the union.

Unions as Red-Handle Signals

A union representative is a worker, elected by their colleagues, whose responsibility is to represent the workers and their interests at the company. As an elected position, the union representative has the confidence of the workers, and workers generally feel more comfortable sharing thoughts and concerns with union representatives than with leadership.
Union representatives—in Scandinavia and most civilized countries, at least—are included in company decision-making processes, and have greater access to leadership than the average worker. They are also protected from reprisal by the law.

These features are there to ensure union representatives can properly represent the employees, but they also make them ideal vehicles for red-handle signals. They're already meant to bring employees' concerns to leadership; these concerns are naturally going to relate to the ongoing work at the company, which gives leadership a way to learn of urgent problems in a timely manner.

Win-Win

I've repeatedly urged workers to unionize on this blog. On the basis of what I've written here, I will do so again; if you and your colleagues feel like your concerns are being ignored, or that communication with leadership isn't working, getting organized and speaking collectively is a possible solution. One that has worked for many others in the past.

But I also want to reach out to the employers here. If there's one idea I've tried to get across in this post, it's that having your workers unionize can be beneficial to company leadership, as employee representatives ensure they learn of urgent issues among the workers in time to react. If, somehow, the person reading this is in a leadership position at a company where the lines of communication have broken down in the ways I've described, you should consider encouraging your workers to unionize.

This is one of those cases where the relationship between the union and the employer actually can be mutually beneficial. Companies that capitalize have a lot to gain.