[igorkraw]

I don't want to start a debate about solidarity or not since you made your position implicitly clear, but I am genuinely interested: Do you apply the same logic to having a police force while not being robbed, getting insurance or paying taxes? (these are various degrees of the same logic to me, not the same)

[zarkov99]

Solidarity to whom? A group of people that have the same super valuable skills as me? Why do they deserve any of my solidarity any more than anyone else? As to your point, I agree, it is all about degrees, and in my mind the degree to which we, in tech, need unions is 0. I don't buy, at all, the argument that if we should get unionized, with all the negative that implies, just in case we cannot do it when it is needed. Power moves slowly, compared to crime or natural disasters, and we will have plenty of time to react in the unlikely event unions in tech will ever benefit anyone beyond the union leaders.

[igorkraw]

As a start, you could join unions that organise cross-domain and make life for QA, tech support and many others nicer. Or achieve any other corporation specific goal that you can't change achieve your own (higher quality standards, 20% time etc., Better bonuses...make sure you get as much of the value you create as possible). Life could be even nicer basically.

If you are convinced you can still do it when programmers aren't in demand anymore and they won't immediately offshore those jobs, I won't convince you otherwise.