The search results I'm seeing for that don't seem relevant to the discussion. Did you actually have any evidence to the "This is an extremely common pattern with union practices in the US." or were you just taking a shot in the dark here to support your own bias?
No evidence that you would (or should) be satisfied with, just direct personal experience as a member of the Teamsters (Local 284), years of indirect personal experience working in HVAC and building two homes (IBEW and Carpenters union) and many personal anecdotes from my brother (CWA) and wife (NEA).
My point is this. There are some common pathologies in the way unions tend to operate (or at least old unions that have ossified over time) in the US that have nothing to do with the underlying objectives of collective bargaining. This step for Kickstarter is a huge victory for organized labor in the USA and they are likely to receive aggressive input from other American labor unions as to how they should operate. In my opinion the employees at Kickstarter accept this input at their own peril. This shouldn't just be a new union, this should be a new type of union and one indicator of success would be strong objection to their charter from one or more existing unions in the US.
For the record I have no philosophical objection to unions or collective bargaining at all. I do have material concerns around how they tend to operate in the US.
