>I absolutely do not understand why you would vote against your own collective interestIt's because unions in America cannot guarantee the existence of the job. Yes, unions can force negotiations but they have no power to force the corporation to keep the factory open. (E.g. workers of Bakers union go on strike and in response, Hostess closes the factory.)
That's the tradeoff of possible negative consequences that many armchair observers totally leave out when they only emphasize benefits of unions such as "higher pay, better work conditions, etc".
I'd contend that observers who are confused why workers would "vote against their self-interest" and being "illogical" -- do not truly empathize with the poor workers' plight. (Or the observers are from Europe where unions work differently than America.)
So the workers (Volkswagen workers in TN, Nissan in TN, Boeing in SC) that voted to reject union representation weighed the game theory tradeoffs of:
(a) jobs continue to exist with better pay and conditions
... or ...
(b) jobs are eliminated leading to layoffs and pay of $0
The possible outcome of (b) becomes even more perverse in that the workers pay dues to have their jobs eliminated!
Yes, but if workers don't form a union -- "it's a race to the bottom!". Well, repeating memes is the currency of pundits rather than real cash that puts food on the table. Workers, understandably, make local decisions because they want a paycheck rather than worry about some global abstraction of "race to the bottom".
Other fields such as NFL, NBA, superstars have leverage in union negotiations. Faceless workers have much less leverage. E.g. baseball umpires (faceless and less leverage) strike but the MLB just accepts their resignations and hires replacements. The unskilled line workers in factories have even less leverage.