For example, what’s preventing me and a coworker from just calling ourself “The Zach and Josh union,” and slowly adding more members as we go?
Similarly, in the case of existing unions like the United Auto workers Union, why can’t 3-4 employees at a non-union company choose to be represented by the UAW without needing 50% of the company to join also?
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Because that’s not how the legal structures of unions are set up. If you work at a company that is non-union and you tried to just personally join a union, you would be forcing your non union company to now negotiate with a union, which costs money and time and lawyers.
So, to prevent it being a major pain in the ass for companies everytime 2 or 3 employees want to start/join a union, the companies have successfully negotiated with the Department of Labor (which oversees union creation and negotiation) that workers can vote to join the union, but they have to do it in one big one and done vote, one event, not 20 different votes that the company’s lawyers have to deal with individually.
Because that’s how the laws work. In the U.S., the National Labor Relations Act of 1935 is the legal framework for unions. It governs the formation of unions, the rights and protections of unions and union members, and what recourse unions and union members have when employers violate those rights and protections. Under that law, if your workplace doesn’t want to voluntarily recognize your union (for example, you Zach and Josh union), the only other way to form a union with actual legal protections is to hold a vote that’s supervised by the National Labor Relations Board.
So nothing is stopping you and a coworker from forming a 2 person union, but that’s outside the legal framework of the NLRA and so you won’t get the legal rights and protections of the law.
This is something that varies from country to country so I’m going to answer this in a general fashion. Generally this is how unions do grow at the start, by slowly growing member to member. However, at some point there comes the point where they want to talk to the employer on behalf of the membership, and that requires recognition by the employer. Many countries and companies do negotiate with multiple unions, and that’s how sometimes you can end up with a portion of the workforce on strike, which is not especially effective.
Countries have laws in place to force employer to recognise unions, and without these companies could just ignore them all the time. In the US these laws are quite limited and also quite binary and require a majority vote in order to have the recognition, and then the union usually negotiates on behalf of everyone. There is something to be said about only negotiating with one single union instead of, say, three or four different unions collectively but with different positions that may have different outcomes. It provides more singular solidarity, and simplicity for the employer too, but also lack of options for employees to choose who they want to represent them.
In general though, while three to four people can join a union and get the legal support and advice and other services they offer, it would not be especially reasonable to expect an employer to bother negotiating as a block with such a small group if there was a large employee base.
Unions are given arbitrary powers determined by the state. Ironically, in most cases, they create a monopoly in who can negotiate with the employer.
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