I assume your comment is that Amazon would lose money if a union happened?
I have had situations where it was not allowed to move a computer monitor from one cube to another - that had to be done by a union employee. Literally taking a unused spare monitor from one desk, and putting it on another employees desk where it was need. ...and there was a formal requisition process to get that done which took two weeks to get through approvals, assignment, and finally have it done.
I have had union workers walk off the job during a major system outage because their facility managers forced them to take their break time. The whole company was down - it was all-hands-on-deck outage due to Hurricane Sandy. The actual union workers wanted to help us get the systems back online for the company, but the union rep wouldn't let them work.
I have had great workers quit or refuse jobs with our company because they knew and loathed the union - not the company, but the UNION.
I don't have any problem with unions at companies that protect the SAFETY of workers, as they are needed in various industrial jobs. ...but at a TECH companies where workers are making six figures, have matched 401k plans, and safe and comfortable desk jobs? ...it just screams "ridiculous" to me.
That said unions help more than they hurt, in my opinion. It's also pointless to paint all unions with the same brush like that, you worked with a group of people that had bad management. That's can happen in any organization, not just unions.
Not they're not all great all the time but I think the Hollywood unions are something we as tech workers could model ourselves after. You still negotiate your own salary and such but certain benefits like pension/retirement/healthcare (which are great at scale but hurt employers and employees at smaller businesses) can be amalgamated across the membership.
Like for example just a couple years ago the writers unions got into a spat with their agents over double dipping with production companies and not representing the interests of their clients. That kind of bargaining power can be wielded to fix institutional problems across an industry, but it doesn't have to come at the cost of individual gains - the writers still negotiate their own compensation and sign their own deals.
Unions can be a great way for industries to self regulate imo.
That's a guild, not a union. And sure, it's good. As long as you don't care about people that aren't in it right now. SAG does their very best to keep new entrants out.
And they don't work to keep new entrants out. Union workplaces do prefer to hire union members, but if they can't then they'll work to get someone enrolled in the union.