Many German companies (BMW, Siemens, Bosch, BASF, ...) historically cooperate with unions like "IG Metall". Unions win benefits for their members, but companies usually pass these benefits on to all employees. These benefits typically include: 35-hour work week, regular and performance-independent salary increases for all employees, at least 6 weeks of vacation per year, parental leave beyond the legal minimum, training and job placement if your current job is eliminated, etc. If you are a developer working for one of these companies, the union contracts will always affect you, even if you are not a union member.

It is hard to tell if you are in a better or worse situation as a developer when you work in such a company. Many employees in such companies would like to have a 40-hour week, because that would result in higher pay. Unions, however, push to allow 40-hour weeks only to a small percentage of the workforce on the grounds that if the workload is higher, it should be compensated by new hires instead of overtime for existing employees, since more employees also means more union members and thus more power for unions.

> regular and performance-independent salary increases for all employees

What country are you talking about?

Germany, if the collective agreement for the metal and electrical industry applies to you [1]:

4.3 % pay increase for all employees in 2018, 2.0 % in 2017, 2.8 % in 2016, 2.2 % in 2014, 3.4 % in 2013, etc.

In addition, there are individually agreed salary increases depending performance.

[1] https://www.igmetall.de/ueber-uns/geschichte/die-tariferfolg...

Depends on the industry, different industries get different unions. I believe the ones I work with are in the steel workers union, but since I don't live in Germany I'm sure. I just know they find their union worth it.

Labor Union. But if a Lead Engineer needs a Labor Union for his benefits, then he does something clearly wrong.