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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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.
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