I've seen a number of articles that say unions can't prevent or stop layoffs and I want to dispel that myth. There's a long history of workers in unions fighting back against layoffs, even in the games industry!
In some countries like the UK, companies are legally required to negotiate with unions they recognize as part of redundancy processes. This alone can prevent a ton of job losses or halt redundancy proceedings entirely.
Even outside of legal frameworks (which I don't recommend relying on heavily), unions can stop redundancies by workers pushing back through collective action. Striking, occupying workplaces, campaigns, and other similar actions can force executives to change their minds about layoffs.
How many times have executives made ridiculous short-term decisions that workers knew would result in layoffs? Workers in unions can prevent those layoffs by contesting the short-term decisions when they happen instead of years later when executives decide to do layoffs. The knowledge alone that workers are willing to disrupt work will give executives pause about making short-term decisions or choosing to lay off workers.
Preventative measures are incredibly effective. After all, the best layoff is one that never happens. All in all, workers in unions can and have prevented, stopped, and/or reduced the amount of people laid off. It's definitely possible and has been done!
If you're frustrated by the number of layoffs the games industry has had this past year, I'd really recommend joining a union and getting active in your workplace. It's the single best way we can push back against the mass layoffs our industry experiences every year.
From 4 years ago even. I don't know who (or which publication) is suggesting that unions can't have any impact on layoffs, but those arguments are hardly new, and have been countered over and over again in the past - and yes, even for the games industry in particular! So folks writing those articles should really be doing better research if all they're doing is just rehashing that line.
In Germany, any company with twelve employees can start a Betriebsrat, a hyperlocal union composed of employees that has equal say in all company decisions including layoffs.
When I worked at a German gaming company, the new Chinese owner wanted to make my entire project redundant. Just, like, fire everyone who worked on it. The Betriebsrat stepped in to clarify that they couldn't do that. The new owners could only make specific positions redundant, which would spread the layoffs out over all projects at the studio. And once a position was made redundant, they wouldn't be able to rehire for that position for at least a year.
The new owners backed off from the whole idea of layoffs after that, and everyone kept their job.