White Collar by C. Wright Mills — Read

The acceptance or rejection of unions depends upon employees' awareness of their objective problems and recognition of unions as means for meeting them. For people to accept unions obviously requires that unions be available to them, and moreover, that they view unions as instruments for achieving desired aims rather than in terms of the illusions about unions so often current in white-collar circles.

Objective circumstances of the work situation influence the white-collar employees' psychology when they are confronted with the idea of joining a union. By and large, these are not different from those affecting the organizability of wage-workers, and include: strategic position in the technological or marketing processes of an industry, which conditions bargaining power; unfair treatment by employers, which creates a high state of grievance; a helpful legal framework, which protects the right to organize; a profitable business but one in which labor costs form a small proportion of the cost of production, which means that higher wages will not severely affect total costs; relative permanency of employment and of labor force, so that organization may be stable.