Interesting examples. Doctors are part of a cartel. Also lawyers. Although I don't think all lawyers get high wages.
Professional athletes are unionized. They would be earning much less money if they weren't.
Professional athletes are unionized. They would be earning much less money if they weren't.
Then you write "it's hard to find examples of high wage workers who aren't in some sense unionized."
And then you again add something completely contradictory.
But I do agree with you. I would say that tech workers are underpaid. Google has revenue per employee of $931,565. Most of that is profit. Is the average compensation per Googler anywhere near that?
Why shouldn't Googlers form a union and take lets say an average $500,000 per employee? Right now, Googlers get paid free-market wages that are a fraction of the value they add to the company.
When you brought up unions, I pointed out that since tech workers have less market power than doctors and lawyers, they are actually underpaid relative to these groups.
To clarify: I think that doctors and lawyers would still be highly paid if they had no market power, because their skills/abilities are valuable.
So my point of view is that market wages are in accordance to the value that people produce, but people can sometimes obtain more by having market power (or less, if the employers have market power). It seems that you think higher wages only come from market power.
On a union for Googlers, what would stop someone else from joining Google and not joining the union, in exchange for better pay/conditions in the short term.