https://gamedevunion.pl/?page_id=29&lang=en

I have a few questions:
1) Is GOG part of this union.
2) Will the beneficiaries apply to contract or otherwise sourced employees?
3) Will the union have sufficient power as to remove bad actors from higher management?

They have my full support.

If I had my own company I would oppose a Union. This being said it is because I would treat my employees well enough all the reasons for forming a Union wouldn't exist. Unions form because there is a vacuum created where needs and good treatment have not been met.
I will even say that if a sizeable portion of my employees wanted to form a Union I would hate myself and ask myself where I had failed them. I would see it as a fault of mine. Sadly I don't think most businesses feel like I do and too many see people as adaptable work units, not as human beings.

1. Are GOG employees considered as game developers? Probably not.

2. If they are Polish, why not? That union doesn't seem to be only about CDPR but Polish game developers in general. However if some work is done abroad (contract or not), they don't belong to that union.

3. I don't think unions have generally any real power to dictate who runs the company or other parts of the business. They can mainly raise their concerns affecting the employees, work conditions etc.

After all, the union members do not own part of the company hence it would be odd if they had any say on the the company management etc.

No one can remove shareholders, and they are usually the ones behind decisions to "make more money no matter what". Only the board of directors can make decisions regarding higher management. The union might ask politely to raise salaries and improve working conditions, or they might threaten to strike.

Additionally, who can determine who or what qualifies as "bad actors"? Yesterday, someone in higher management raised a lot of money for the company, but today 10% of the workforce was laid off to save money for the company. Would this person be considered a "bad actor" or a "good" one?

After 3 rounds of lay-offs, who's surprised?

Good for them.

I'm lucky to have enough leverage with what I know in my career that I don't need a union to be treated well, but anyone who is not too difficult to replace should probably be part of a union.

Cool. Everyone should be in a union. Everyone should own their work as well, not take scraps after middlemen have had their fill.

A Union or syndicate is a right or it should be in any democratic country. Your opposition should be irrelevant, because the rights of the workers can't be under the subjetivity, good or bad will of a CEO, if under the law and achievements of the workers themselves

I remember time ago that I was chatting with a friend of mine and into an hypotetic conversation about these kind of things he defended the philosophical "Hobbesian" cliché -so cool and popular in current times-, that the man was bad by nature.
The matter was that, not surprinsingly, he also defended something similar to you. The boss should balance and manage the rights of the workers for their own good and the company one.
I could only ask him "so, should workers believe a man that is bad by nature?" "And nobody, nor state or adminstration, shoud fiscalize that boss for similar reasons?" "How convenient"

Sounds like something communists would do. I hope CDPR hires strike-breakers and crushes this nefarious scheme against free enterprise. The unionizers should be blacklisted and made unemployable in the entire industry.

1. not all employees in CDPR are game developers. You think they are excluded from the union?

edit: actually the manifesto says "We are workers of all professions in Polish gamedev with a common goal of creating games in a stable, fair, diverse, and healthy environment.".
So I guess it's not just game devs.

Not something "would do" but something is done and has been done for more than 100 years even in USA.
Maybe you have too many prejudices or too many privileges to need something like this

People do what he can to defend their own vital interests

I think you missed the irony in his post (irony in the original sense, not misused for 'funny coincidence').

Yeah, and in a right to work area, even talking about a union could cost you your job. There is a reason why unions aren't everywhere. But beyond that, not everyone wants to pay union dues for benefits they won't receive. There are good unions and bad unions. Right now, we are witnessing bad union leadership in the UAW demanding 40% raises on jobs that already pay far above the median abd striking because they're not getting it. It's ridiculous for anyone except the auto workers because things are already expensive, they are already paid well and that mess will cause huge impacts on many major industries and common families. It's untenable and they're not willing to negotiate or budge because they are shit heads and even some union members are trying to get them to stop with the unreasonable demands.

It really gets silly once unions start to compete with each other and try to snatch each other's members.
In Germany, the union Ver.di calls for a strike each year before Christmas, attacking Amazon.de.
They claim that the employees running through the warehouse are salespersons and should be payed as such, even if they never have any contact with a customer. All they do is to fetch stuff, put it in boxes and label them. For warehousemen the employees get payed very well. Ver.di however wants them to be payed as salesmen.
They know it will never happen, but it brings a lot of press and hopefully new members.