Outsourcing technical work comes in waves. I've seen it up-close-and-personal 3 times. It's worked once and the magic that went into making it work (one of the founders moved back to his home country and started a consultancy that was contracted by the original business) in that specific instance isn't something that is easily replicated.
Well if there was an actual union in place there would be general strikes. A company that lost all IT/SWE staff for the period of the strike may be more open to negotiations.