Collective bargaining grew out of the need to strengthen the weak negotiating position of labour with respect to capital. Labour's negotiating position is weak

Collective bargaining grew out of the need to strengthen the weak negotiating position of labour with respect to capital. Labour's negotiating position is weak when labour is abundant and/or capital is short. In many industries (especially those that dominated the 19th and 20th centuries) labour is abundant because workers are fungible: business owners can keep wages down by threatening to replace workers. This doesn't happen in software engineering because software engineers aren't easy to replace: relevant experience matters and learning curve is steep. Unlike the capital-intensive industries of the past, software engineering is very light on capital: the initial investment required to start a company is within reach of almost all software engineers. Thus, in software engineering labour is short and capital abundant and so labour's negotiating position is strong and capital's position is weak. This is one reason why software companies are so generous in benefits and why there are no unions. It has nothing to do with anybody's ego.