This is an industry founded upon the principles of innovation and invention, is it not? Perhaps tech can invent a union that can overcome issues found in the unions of the past.
Throughout human history, unions are one of the few ways that ordinary citizens can actually stand up against concentrated power (democracy, revolutions are some other ways). Rather than trying to invent something new, maybe study the past a bit more.
> I'm firmly convinced that tech workers will come around to unionizing once they accidentally reinvent it under a different name
https://mru.org/courses/principles-economics-microeconomics/...
It's the same principle which professional organizations use to keep compensation high for doctors and lawyers: set a limit on the number of entrants.
Restricting entry is a fundamental feature of unions: it protects those who are already in industry at the expense of potential new employees who might otherwise come in and undercut wages.
That said if you want to standardize the admissions process, a professional organization is a tried and true way to accomplish this: doctors and lawyers take a standardized test, become accredited, and can take on any job without being grilled for their technical skills.
https://kickstarterunited.org/#faqs
The first and only point related to pay is "equal pay for equal work", which is more about gender pay gaps than anything:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal_pay_for_equal_work
There's plenty of issues in the tech industry that a union or some other professional association or guild (or even the IEEE, with teeth) could address that have nothing to do with giving developers higher wages.
I just find it amazing that a community so wrapped up in its own hubris always seems throws up its hands when the subject of labor relations comes up, insisting that no further improvement is possible. (Also of amusement is that KS, a crowdfunding startup, is ostensibly is about disrupting how goods are created and sold). So perhaps the industry is selective about what it believes tech is capable of inventing?
Also, a tech union wouldn’t be an advocate of open offices or the overuse of scrum, if the HN commentariat is representative of industry workers.