> Why do Europeans get paid so much less than Americans
There are lots of reasons though I doubt one of them is that it costs companies a fortune to document disciplinary actions before they fire someone (Is that even a law everywhere in Europe?) and it's probably more related to normal reasons like the cost of living is much much lower since employees already have a lot of their expenses covered entirely or substantially lowered like healthcare, child care, higher education, and transportation. They also work much less than Americans. They get tons of time off for vacations and for their families. All that extra income isn't putting the United States at the top of quality of life/happiness indexes. Even with lower numbers on their paychecks many Europeans are getting everything they need, and enough of whatever it is they want, to live healthy, happy, satisfied lives.
Again, unions don't force companies to keep people employed, but agreements companies make with unions can set certain terms. VW agreed to no compulsory layoffs until 2030. They can still fire workers who don't do their job. They can still eliminate tens of thousands of positions. They've been doing exactly that and they plan to do much more (https://www.cnbc.com/2026/06/26/volkswagen-vw-job-cuts-autos...). If VW has mismanaged the company by accepting a labor agreement that they couldn't live up to that's not really the union's fault. Sure, companies could make a lot more money if they didn't have to treat their employees fairly. They could make even more money if they had slaves. That doesn't mean that workers should happily let them. Instead workers and companies have to find something they can both agree to. Unions just let workers do that on a more level playing field.
> So why do most of our unions have time-in-grade promotions? Merit-based promo is quite rare in unionized jobs in the US.
If that's true it's either because workers in those unions feel that is important to them or because they couldn't get an agreement with the company that offered them something better. Workers can ask for anything they want, but the company has to agree to those terms. Many workers feel that their time and experience at a company makes them more valuable and that should be reflected in pay and promotions.
They may prefer to work under people who actually understand the work they do because they did it themselves. Workers may not like it when people who have no idea what they are doing get promoted into high paying positions while highly skilled workers with many years of experience can't advance. That said, unions don't have a problem with merit-based promotion when it's transparent and fairly applied to everyone. If companies look at that requirement and say "never mind, that defeats the whole point" then it's the companies who are the problem and not the unions.
> I get the argument when we're talking about working-class people who might have a lot of difficulty finding a new job, but IN SOFTWARE? Demand for qualified engineers is insane...What exactly is a union going to get me that I can't get myself?
there are plenty of qualified people right here on this website who have been looking for work and talking about how difficult it is to find a decent job. If you're one a very very very very small number of people in the world who will somehow never have any problem finding work, that's great for you. The vast majority of the people on Earth aren't in that position. Not even the ones who write software for a living.
Even if you are 100% certain that you can always find a higher paying job the moment you decide to quit your current job (in which case, why haven't you quit the one you have already?) there are all kinds of things a union could still do for you. While I myself am not convinced that AI is going to put all programmers out of a job, companies are forcing it on workers. A union could give you a seat at the table when it comes to decisions surrounding how the company uses AI.
This post was all about software companies using dark patterns and unethical practices. A strong union could help prevent companies from making employees do things that are unethical. A union could give programmers the ability to stop software from being released when it has bugs that would cause security/privacy issues. A union could help ensure that software is better written. Unions could also give you benefits you don't have now or improve the ones you have. A union could help to give you more time to spend working on what you care about instead of working for what your boss wants.