>These days I reside in a country which has unions everywhere - including in engineering disciplines. And everyone who wants to increase their salary runs away from union and unionized workplaces as far away and as quickly away as possible.
Makes perfect sense. Unions negotiate lower salaries for everyone. sarcasm
>It CAN happen? Why hasn't it, except for guilds (which you rightfully group with business owners)? I can tell you why it didn't happen in unions I'm familiar with: The union representatives who negotiate on behalf of the employees and the people who can score a >$200k salary are mutually exclusive groups. In fact, they negotiators are usually those who wouldn't score more than the prevailing average in an industry.
Why are union members usually people with low salaries? Simple. Only the least skilled are desperate enough to form unions. They have to do it in a sense. Software engineers are complacent with their super high salaries, not knowing that their 120k annual salary is based off work that generates 1 million in monthly revenue. Thanks to the lack of unions, if you try to negotiate a more than fair 500k annual salary the company will shoot you down. Due to another idiot SE in the world who thinks he's only worth 120k, you're easily replaced without a union backing you up.
>At which point, they are happy to sign an agreement for just 5% than the prevailing average - and they do so in the name of the more capable employees as well.
There's no need to negotiate upper limits on pay. There also should be no need to end individual negotiations. If unions aren't currently structured in a way that benefits the employee then the structure of what we consider to be a union should be changed.
>Other things that happen is stuff like management requesting the union to agree that "no employee will be paid higher than their manager". Which union officials always agree to (for various reasons), and which causes your most productive employees - those who are at the top of their fields but not anywhere near the top of the managerial ladder - to abandon ship.
why does this need to be agreed too? There's no need for this to be agreed to at all. No upper limits to salary. Who wants that? Union members should vote for what they want. Union officials should be held accountable every decision they make. Only lower limits on salary should be negotiated with the union and employer. The actual salary should be a separate negotiation between employee and employer.
IF unions aren't structured that way then they should be. The government shouldn't decide on some arbitrary hierarchy for a union that ends up not benefiting people. People acting together in organized groups generally don't want to fuck themselves over with stupid things like upper limits to salary and ending all individual negotiations with the employer.