Maybe. This is how I've felt about unions since the grad students tried to unionize at my university, and all the hard science grad students would have lower sa

Maybe. This is how I've felt about unions since the grad students tried to unionize at my university, and all the hard science grad students would have lower salaries if the union came to fruition. So it's an effect that I would expect in general if good devs get grouped in with non devs. However, a former roomate's father owned a construction company and I was talked to him about unions once. I took the stance that he must be frustrated about unions as a business owner, and he said "no way". He said he loved the 3 unions he had on site because without them he wouldn't have access to the best talent. Apparently if you're a skilled tradesman you have a much higher earning potential in a union than out of a union, so the most skilled will be in a union. Now that said, that's the current equilibrium in the construction world. I have another anecdote from a former employer that had to deal with unions, and unions were a pain for that company to work with. I think the owner would have happily squashed the union if he could, but this was in a shrinking industry that had a glut of talent. Definitely a different equilibrium there. So you could very well be correct that unions would pull down salaries for high paid devs in the short term, and even in the long term. I'm just not as convinced as I was when I was younger.