> Are there other benefits besides layoff protection? Discussions like these often focus on the downsides of unionization. It’s hard to recall one extolling the

> Are there other benefits besides layoff protection? Discussions like these often focus on the downsides of unionization. It’s hard to recall one extolling the virtues. It's less about preventing layoffs, than preventing employers behaving differently from they did during the good years. Slashing benefits, imposing harsher conditions, and so forth. It just feels like we're in a grasshopper and the ants situation and if winter comes, we're going to be inundated with news stories about tech corporate management undertaking gross and appalling actions that would have been unthinkable, or easily avoidable, during the boom times.