> "well, but what would we need to fight for as a union?"
Improved compensation, benefits, bonuses, stock options, paid conferences, training, etc...
Improved compensation, benefits, bonuses, stock options, paid conferences, training, etc...
The lobbyists can start by bringing down the exemptions on overtime pay for tech workers, and by trying to loosen immigration restrictions on the people of our industry.
I don't think a U.S. union would try to loosen immigration restrictions...they'd care about protecting the rights of U.S. workers...also, why would a union representing U.S. workers want to increase the labor supply?
The companies are multinational, so the unions have to be multinational, too. If the company tries to skirt around the union by doing the work in India instead of the US, the union should anticipate the move and surprise the company by already being there, still demanding a better deal for our people.
I anticipate the demand for people with technical skills will continue to rise in the future. There is no need to artificially limit the labor supply anywhere, even worldwide, because the world's universities already can't crank out enough people with official credentials. (And when they do, the new graduates still can't get jobs, because that degree apparently still isn't good enough to meet business expectations.) The union could still eat up much of the bootcamp and intern business with its own apprenticeships. That's when it might try throttling the supply, after gaining some control over it, by operating at the optimal point for monopolistic competition. Restrict it just enough to squeeze more money out of the market, but not enough to allow a new competitor to enter.
And it benefits all of us to be able to shop around to different jurisdictions as easily as those who employ us. The countries and companies that provide the most attractive environments will get more of us, and therefore prosper, while those who are hostile will get less of us, and therefore rapidly descend into a new dark age of wretchedness and despair, where nothing works properly and half the kiosks and infoscreens either show BSoD or a console screen with no attached keyboard. Then they will rue the day they snubbed the nerds, and weep into their low-tech cloth pillows.
(WARNING: This post may contain hyperbole.~)
I don't want to be mandated to strike and pout over not getting enough money. As long as I am treated fairly (I am) and paid fairly (I am), I am not paying any percentage to some company to tell me to screw over my employer.
If some company wants to unionize, have fun but I am not joining that party.
> "...pout over not getting enough money"
You're trying to make striking sound childish but there are plenty of legitimate reasons why unions go on strike.
No. There is a reason I went into software development and not blue-collar work. ;)
(Nothing wrong with it, just not the stuff I want to deal with. Unions included. I lose enough money already to the gov't.)
I have been in a union before (nearly a decade of industrial electrician/power plant operator work before I obtained my CS degree). You bet there is corruption in some unions, but perhaps it is different in the "skilled trades" though, at least it seems that way from my personal experience.
Avoiding blue collar work is a primary motivation for my transition to full time software dev...we'll see how it turns out though because the office culture/work environment is very foreign to me in many ways.
I'm not sure how it would work to have a union that can essentially fork itself whenever the leadership goes bad, or even one that has no leadership to begin with, and manages everything with a consensus/compromise algorithm.