If you think all developers are interchangeable you're the reason they're forming a union.

If software workers were that replaceable, they wouldn't be paid huge salaries to sit in offices in San Francisco, they'd be outsourced already.

(Mind you, that very individualism is why they're not already unionized)

Federal law makes it illegal to retaliate against people for forming a union. Companies still do, and there's no law saying they have to keep hiring in that unit, but if they fire everyone they will probably lose the resulting lawsuit.

It's probably even more effective than other industries. Most industries you have good/bad workers but in software there is a few engineers where you cannot lose them. Who cares about scabs/replacements/etc. like literally no one has their specific domain knowledge.

> I don’t understand what gives the union power at the end of the day when the company could easily outsource development and license their ip and fire everyone.

Gamers are very passionate about their games and the companies behind them. They are also very anti-AI, pro consumer rights, and pro unions. At least the vocal majority of gamers, such as on /r/games, which is where a good portion of gaming journalists get their takes.

It would be the end of id Software from a PR standpoint if they fired union developers responsible for their beloved titles, specifically the recent DOOM titles. The bad PR would also extend to ZeniMax, Bethesda, and Microsoft.

That said, gamers are also the worst at voting with their wallet. Despite all the bad union PR Rockstar North is receiving, pretty much everyone in support of the fired employees will probably still end up buying GTA6 because of FOMO and hype.

> the company could easily outsource development and license their ip and fire everyone…

This turns out to be a lot harder in practice than in theory.