You are describing hiring halls -- as used for a century at the waterfront. in construction. and I believe maritime unions. About 25 years ago I was chatting with an SEIU organizer (also ph.d. in econ from U of Mass (Amherst) who suggested the only way to organize fast food places was through hiring halls.
[WS:] I had the exact same reaction - union hall, which I may add, was the root cause of patronage, shakedowns and all the bad stuff associated with US trade unionism. This model may work to some extent with specialized labor in relatively short supply, because the bosses could not find substitutes outside the union hall. But it certainly will NOT work with fast food places, at least without mob-enforced "no-scab" hiring policy.
The union model that IMHO has a better chance in success in the service sector is industry-wide unionism of the kind you have in Europe, or for that matter, the way professional associations work in this country. Every worker in a particular industry can join a union which represents all workers in that industry. This model is not dependent on any popularity contests on the shop floor, which is the main mechanism that allows the bosses to keep unions out. Anyone who wants to be a union member can simply sign in and be represented by a union. Industry wide unions also have much greater leverage against individual establishments.
The fact of the matter is that service establishments use relatively low skill labor which is in abundant supply. Therefore controlling that supply via union hall type mechanisms is bound to fail. A more promising approach is lobbying for industry-wide regulations that protect all workers in that industry, at least from the most blatant excesses. Industry wide unions are much better equipped to push for such regulations than union halls.
There is, of course the potential issue of free riding i.e. individual workers enjoying union protection without paying union dues, but I think this problem is largely overblown by game theorists. In reality, professional associations do to seem to be suffering from the free rider problem - so it is quite feasible to overcome it.
Of course, this calls for a very different model of trade unionism that is antithetical to the current one and, I may add, the general political climate prevailing in this country. As much as I would like to see the change of that climate and the reversal of the steady decline of labor's political power - I also came to terms with the fact that this will not happen here, at least not in my life time.
Wojtek