It depends on the type of white collar job. Collective bargaining, in general, assumes a degree of fungibility that doesn't exist with all white collar positions. Two different managers, for instance, can have profoundly different consequences on a company's bottom line. Treating them as equal in that situation is hard to justify, to the company and the workers alike. That's one of the reasons private-sector unions have had so much trouble trying to unionize professionals even though they've been playing up their efforts for years now.
US white collar culture works better with associations than unions. Arguably, its a better solution as union corruption is a big problem, especially in the public sector, and associations solve this by being less powerful entities while still being effective for their member's goals.
Many other countries either have associations or simply join US associations and re-distribute their certification materials locally and promote their research and policies locally. I think its pretty obvious that unions solve a specific problem that is more in tune with the earlier industrial era than today.
The rise of associations in the past 40-50 years isn't a coincidence. Unions simply do not work well outside of very specific industries. This trend works internationally too. Associations aren't a US thing anymore.
Union, association, enterprise agreement ... it doesn't matter to me what it's called, but I think there should be collective bargaining and written agreements. I don't want an adversarial approach that sucks the life out of the company.
