I worked at Dow Jones (owners of The Wall Street Journal) and was forced into the union there.
That particular union at the time at that company was nothing but a detriment to me and other software engineers. You paid dues and got nothing but lower wages in return. The union would also protect the jobs of under-performing employees which was just demoralizing. One of the things people would negotiate for was to be made nominally into managers with only 1 direct report so they could get out of the union and individually negotiate their pay packages outside of the union's agreement.
Now possibly part of the problem was that it was not a union for all software engineers but a general union for employees of many different jobs.
But the experience left me skeptical of unions in this profession. I think something like employees pooling their equity to get representation on the board or something like that might be more effective.
That particular union at the time at that company was nothing but a detriment to me and other software engineers. You paid dues and got nothing but lower wages in return. The union would also protect the jobs of under-performing employees which was just demoralizing. One of the things people would negotiate for was to be made nominally into managers with only 1 direct report so they could get out of the union and individually negotiate their pay packages outside of the union's agreement.
Now possibly part of the problem was that it was not a union for all software engineers but a general union for employees of many different jobs.
But the experience left me skeptical of unions in this profession. I think something like employees pooling their equity to get representation on the board or something like that might be more effective.