[barry-cotter]

Strong unions could do vocational training in software but the private sector is doing a more than reasonable job of that and their incentives are to increase supply, not restrict it. Lambda School has only existed for two years and is already educating an appreciable fraction of the software engineers in the US.

One of the economic failure modes of strong unions is excessive credentialisation and a dualised labour market. I’m most familiar with unions in Ireland and we definitely have some of that. A plastering apprenticeship is either three or four years. Learning to plaster is at most a six month job. Se situation with tiling. For a knowledge worker example more directly relevant to programmers the teachers’ unions really push credentialisation and dualistation. During the recent economic downturn the government wanted to decrease the wage bill so the teacher unions doubly shafted aspirant teachers. They negotiated a doubling in the length of teacher certification, from a one year Higher Diploma in Education to a two year M.Ed. and a lower pay scale for teachers hired after a certain date. Education in pedagogy doesn’t even have any demonstrable effect on teacher effectiveness so this was pure waste with no benefit. Even before that in Ireland a permanent job as a teacher is fantastic but it will take the average new graduate of a teacher training programme at three to five years of substitute work, with no paid holiday or other benefits to get one, if they ever do.

In the U.K. with its easier entry and lower credential requirements [1] getting a job is easy but the working conditions are comparatively dreadful.

Unions generally make things better for those on the inside by making them worse for those on the outside.

[1] Do you have a psychology degree and want to teach Math? Do a conversion course and you can.