As I write the vote against unionizing one particular Amazon distribution center is receding into the past. The company convinced a small minority of employees to vote against the union but the union convinced an even smaller minority to vote for organizing. About half the employees voted (55%) and 30% of the voters supported unionization.
Unions for other employees always seem a moderately good idea to me. I would be happy if Amazon had to pay attention to a union (or to anyone with any other perspective than their own internal self-satisfaction).
I remember considering the advantages of a union in my first real job when nobody else was talking union. But in actual reality I never found myself in a position where I believed a union would bring a net benefit to me. That includes the jobs which were already unionized. (In one of those the union's lawyer felt duty bound to remind us of the option of suing the union for failing to represent.)
I feel supportive of unions for other employees but do I want to add another bureaucracy which will ignore my own preferences and situation? That is management's most potent anti-union argument; the fact it works in favor of a management bureaucracy which consistently ignores the employees' preferences and situations is telling.
Several of the "liberal" or "progressive" publications have been saying that the advantage of unionization is that it gives employees "a seat at the table", "a voice" in making decisions about the future. I would be a lot stronger in my support of unions if I had faith in that claim.
Right now I am inclined to believe social organizing is more effective than labor organizing. I think OSHA has probably done more than union contracts to protect employees from death and disability, Social Security has done more to eliminate elder poverty than union pension plans, and public outcry is more successful at discouraging corporate collusion with racism than having a union president sit on the board of directors.
Countering that opinion, social activism has been working against racism, voter suppression, and various monopolies and plutocracies for something more than 200 years with decidedly limited success.