>* I feel like unions are first a way for the less competent to kind of hang in there and not have to try harder* That's a common misconception; not all unions

>* I feel like unions are first a way for the less competent to kind of hang in there and not have to try harder* That's a common misconception; not all unions are like that. Some unions do value seniority such as teachers' unions which seem to think that even the shittiest teacher still deserves to keep their job and lately, at least in Canada, they haven't been fighting properly for benefits. Valuing seniority despite incompetence is something we typically see in the corporate world. Where do you think the inspiration for the Pointy-Haired Boss in Dilbert comics comes from? A programmers union would only need to establish a lower limit; if you're a bad programmer you'll eventually be found out and your salary will never go above X but we at least need to establish what X is. I've seen decent junior programmers start at 45k salary or even 40k (gender discrimination was at play there) and no benefits or 401k/group RRSP or anything else. They were basically treated like crap. That's something we can prevent by unionizing. The programmers making 100k can join the union too and won't be capped in their salary or anything else; they'll just get the satisfaction of making sure other programmers aren't exploited. >and nothing will be done about it so long as most software engineers remain apolitical cowards who refuse to fight for themselves.. Thanks...? You will have to admit that it is accurate. I've seen lots of programmers who think that keeping their head down and just coding will magically result in promotions and pay raises and a bigger training or conference budget. It won't. It won't and you'll get screwed. There's a coder at work who didn't even take vacation! And the company doesn't pay out vacation so you're forced to take it. He was screwing himself by not asking for $$$ in exchange for not taking vacation time, and every year he never uses the $500 training budget. Working for 3 years that's $1500, enough for a few good conferences, enough for travel expenses and hotel to be paid for a 2 day conference at least. But will he attempt to go for that? No way; Why? Because it requires politics. It requires actually interacting with people. I've seen other programmers come into the office on weekends and they didn't band together to avoid that unpaid overtime just to avoid politics.