Electricians and plumbers have the same kind of issues. I have a relative who worked for a company that did the electrical contracting for a huge amount of [hu

Electricians and plumbers have the same kind of issues. I have a relative who worked for a company that did the electrical contracting for a huge amount of [huge retail company] stores. Ultimately, [huge retail company] started bringing in large groups of cheap Mexican labor who were mostly inexperienced in the trade. These groups would screw up the job, so they'd bump the opening date a bit and bring in experienced crew to patch everything up. The end result was a much worse job, but [huge retail company] didn't care because the overall cost was a lot lower. The places where this does not happen are places where the electrical union is strong and laws make sure workers are certified journeymen/masters (or in an apprenticeship). I've thought quite often that the world would view programmers much differently if there were a viable programmer's union.