I would love to have examples of good working conditions being arrived at naturally. Given that there are many programmers of various talent levels throughout

I would love to have examples of good working conditions being arrived at naturally. Given that there are many programmers of various talent levels throughout the industry I have noted a number of dark patterns in programming work: long hours, pay that refuses to follow value of work (Apple makes 400k profit per employee), reduction in workspace quality, etc. We can all pretend that we have more economic power than our highly paid blue collar peers that worked in highly unionized work forces in the past, but the programmers that make the kind of money for that to be true are very rare. Nearly 30 years ago my father made 70k as a union welder. It is highly unlikely that I will be able to match that salary street inflation, and the world is more expensive: education and health care could eat us alive at any moment. I don't know how much of our effort the capital owning class needs to strip from us before we take advantage of the massive productive capacities we have before we make it fair again, but I assure you, it will be organized, not natural.