[talldayo]

Developers are tough, because we aren't lumberjacks or auto workers. We don't exist at a real physical bottleneck for employment that can force negotiations like a union can, and as white collar professionals we can generally be replaced by any cheaper agency that offers the same talent.

I'm afraid it's just not a very solvable problem. Developers are thought workers, our capital faculty is knowledge of software. You can't effectively stop other people from learning how software works, so you can always be undermined at a lower price. Another aspect of the problem is supply and demand - programmers have been vastly overvalued for the past few decades and there are now more of them than ever. With America facing a minor recession it doesn't feel likely that tech businesses will accept wage negotiations.

[pomdevv]

You have a very strong point. All of this can't work without a full cohesion.