alt Hacker NewsUnionization seems to be a secondary effect of strategic failure. If there is a causal relationship, I think it happens in reverse.
Walking the game theory backward, if the team was executing successfully and productively and everyone is getting paid fat bonuses then I don't think there is much motivation to get political in the workplace.
Only after the soul has been completely extracted from a company/team does this process seem to occur.
> ...and everyone is getting paid fat bonuses...
I wonder how many examples there actually are of the people in the trenches doing the actual work getting a 'fat bonus'.
E.g. the idea that unionization might not be a bad idea usually starts with teams not getting any bonuses after they created a highly successful game, and instead the company preventing such 'problems' by firing most of the team right before a game ships.