The most common reason why developers were against the union is because they couldn't negotiate their own salaries.
They could see the market getting crazy and were tied to the collective agreement.
We paid well and had a solid pension but at the end of the day we couldn't compete with FAANG and that's what a lot of developers wanted.
The majority of union members were not software engineers. OPSEU is a large union covering a bunch of different sectors including the finance sector which also comprised of software developers.
The only choice, AFAIK, would be to break away from OPSEU and join (or form) another union. This would have been a very risky move.
The union environment I am aware of classifies software developers as IT personnel, and every new employee has to start at the same salary grade regardless of previous experience, which is under $60K.
They do indeed negotiate salary increases, as much as 2% a year, and they are tenacious, winning retroactive increases even after going years without a contract.
Why do you think this is at all relevant to the people on HN who say they are making $500K to $1M at a FAANG?
Also, you gloss over (assuming you aren't totally unaware) that during the last "70 years", there have indeed been attempts to unionize highly paid engineers, and what do you think happens when they fail? Early retirement (i.e. blacklisting) for the instigators.
Calling people stupid for buying into "demonization, propaganda, and exceptionalism" is not helpful, it's a cliché, and it doesn't need to be said again.
The example you gave is, of course, not relevant. What you describe is not the model for all unions at all.
> Calling people stupid for buying into "demonization, propaganda, and exceptionalism" is not helpful, it's a cliché, and it doesn't need to be said again.
Nobody said that…
Engineers also could collectively tank the economy; wfh makes a strike a matter of not opening a laptop.
Even just the serious threat would put aristocrats on notice. Look what WSB has done to Wall Street with GME.
The last generation has no information advantage. Just a political one. It can be taken away with little to no violence. I mean for one they’re a gerontocracy.
Go forth. Disrupt.
.. nothing? Well, it's generated a lot of press, but there's no evidence of structural changes. At worst they've managed to make one firm lose money on a trade. We're a long way off a final accounting of how much GME meme investors gained and lost.
Here we are discussing the supposed leverage engineers have, but frankly, in 25 years working in circuit board design and software, engineers are some of the biggest snowflakes who fight over text editors, and libraries that help us produce more effectively for the aristocrats.
Meanwhile, a community of spreadsheet fanatics are showing solidarity.
Highlighting how little leverage engineers really have despite all their big talk and brains. They’re largely just cattle for the status quo.
SOPA blackouts changed things.
Teacher strikes change things.
So long as the masses are happy to be apathetic their is no motivation by aristocrats to do better by their subjects.
Off with their heads (figuratively speaking). I would shed no tears if billionaires were suddenly multi-millionaires of it means other families still have those they would otherwise lose to preventable illness.
So much for gritty and exceptional. Kowtowed and low affect is the power engineers have.
We have an older, more proven tool to increase salaries and benefits: unions. The only reason US software engineers are so anti-union is 70 years of demonization, propaganda, and exceptionalism. Engineers think they don't need collective bargaining and the power of a union but then they go on sites like HN and complain about their management, salaries, working hours, open office, etc.