[turk-]

Unions have their purpose but mainly serve unskilled labor. It has a lot to do with the nature of the work. Similar to the reason why lawyers, doctors, architects and accountants don't have labor unions. Unions also tend to be anti-technology as technology tends to automate peoples jobs.

Collective bargaining has little to offer white collar workers.

The additional utility offered by collective bargaining for programmers is probably not larger than the negative utility of having to pay a middleman army of union organizers, employees and lawyers.

[jefurii]

Similar to the reason why lawyers, doctors, architects and accountants don't have labor unions.

What about the American Bar Association, American Medical Association, and other similar groups? They're maybe more like guilds, but they also do a lot of lobbying on behalf of their profession, and provide group insurance and other services.

[Terr_]

https://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2012/11/18/programmers-...

[gspetr]

Last I checked, Michael is now pro-union: https://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2014/10/13/it-might-be-...

[dragonwriter]

> What about the American Bar Association, American Medical Association, and other similar groups? They're maybe more like guilds, but they also do a lot of lobbying on behalf of their profession, and provide group insurance and other services.

Professional associations don't do collective bargaining and aren't labor unions.

While professionals can have unions (and many public sector professionals do), professional associations are structurally not inclined to be union-like because a substantial share of their members -- and usually their most influential members -- are employers, not employees.

[hucker]

For what it's worth, lawyers, doctors, architects and accountants, along with many other skilled professions, including engineers, all have unions in Norway.