Why ask for permission from your employer to join a group? Why do you need their permission? If workers join a union and support each other, it might make it much more difficult for companies to act shitty.
There are 1,8M people on this subreddit, so that would be a big union (yeah yeah, not everybody's in the US, but start somewhere).
In my mind it would be akin to creating a political party:
- create a legal entity
- agree upon the rules for processes e.g how votes are held and counted, who may candidate, which positions there are (treasurer, leading comittee, …) how to join + associated costs, behavioral codex, manifesto/what you stand for, private membership?, etc.
- decide where to communicate, how to reach people, make the union prominent on this subreddit and advertise it on social media, …
It would allow you to do things like:
- advertise for companies that the union considers “good”
- exert pressure during elections
- work together with other orgs in a concerted and organized manner
- back representatives or even put up representatives for vote in political office
Just a thought