So you walk in to negotiate with your capitalist overlords with an equivalent number of lawyers that they can field? Oh, they don't pay you enough to do that? Oh, you need to be working while doing this? Oh, you just got replaced because the default T&C's weren't good enough for you?

You are not a temporarily inconvenienced millionaire/billionaire.

> Did you miss the last sentence or had your mind made up already by then?

Is the first sentence of your comment not your thesis? Or am I to read this as you changing your own mind during this comment? I'm confused. You literally started your comment with "I don't want a union".

> they work out well where there is a clear separation of labor & capital

Citation needed. I've studied a bit of labor history, and this is the first I've heard of such a claim. Unions work poorly when they are corrupt -- the same as any democratic system. I'm not aware of other categorical failures of collective bargaining. Please enlighten me.

> Imagine having a set of union rules to follow when distributing equity to early stage engineers? how do you decide equitable when by definition you are on cutting edge of tech & innovation.

I'm not sure what problem you think the union would create here. Equity is simply another form of compensation, and unions have dealt with non-salary compensation for decades (licensing, branding, likeness, etc). It's really not a problem.

If there are union rules that must be followed, then that would be your answer: you follow those rules. Isn't that strictly better than not having any rules, and simply getting whatever the CEOs/VCs give you? Historically, workers do much better in a union than without.

Union rules are created and voted on by its members. If the workers don't want rules regarding equity, they won't create any. If they do, then they would be worse off without a union to help enforce them.

> unions arent exactly 'shining beacon of honesty and integrity' either

They're democratic representation for workers, no more, no less. (Every time there's an election result someone doesn't like, I see "Ha, democracy isn't perfect, either!" comments from other countries. Yeah, zing, you got us.) Unions have proven to be a shining beacon compared to billionaire CEOs, for sure.

> Look all I want is just some basic labor laws are followed [...] you know the good old law enforcement. its really not so hard if you actually want to do it.

You're using generic "you" here as a linguistic trick. Workers want labor laws followed, but they're not the same people working in "good old law enforcement". Unions are the mechanism by which workers are effective at getting labor laws followed, and new laws passed.

You still have not proposed any alternative mechanism besides suggesting that people who have no incentive to do a thing should start doing a thing. You claim it's not hard. That may be the single hardest thing to do in this world.