This is a really interesting experiment. It kind of seems more like an Employee Resource Group than a union, except that the members have to pay dues. ERG's are

This is a really interesting experiment. It kind of seems more like an Employee Resource Group than a union, except that the members have to pay dues. ERG's are usually run by volunteers, and often get a nominal budget from the company itself to pay various costs (much less than 1% of each member's salary). Why couldn't this use that structure instead? And why do the dues need to be so high? Is the idea to have more teeth, i.e. everyone in the union will strike or leave unless Google stops working with the military, or blocks rightwing Youtube videos, or whatever the current cause may be? Although again, I'm not sure that really requires a union, doesn't that already happen with the big walkouts and collective letters to management that go around? It's also interesting how big of a difference the framing makes here... "Google allows employees to unionize" paints it in a positive light, as opposed to "Google refuses to support a social causes ERG for employees". Overall I can't say I really get it, and wouldn't expect it to catch on so widely namely because I don't think most people want to pay 1% of their salary and not personally get anything tangible in return. But I'm interested to see how it evolves.