There's plenty of stuff that software engineers could want to improve today around oncall, long hours, IP restrictions, non-competes, pay transparency, parental leave, equity, promotion and career management, educational benefits, age/gender/racial/etc discrimination, health care, etc.
When we're in a position of power is a great time for us to form a union and start tackling some of the second tier of issues (like non-competes). If not now, when?
See also: Minimum product security standards and product excellence.
Non-competes are unenforceable in California.
Do you actually think that writing software is going to be come an unskilled job some day?
This presupposes that you'll have a list of companies to join that have all the benefits that you want.
> Non-competes are unenforceable in California.
Great. Tech work happens nationwide. You could say, "I got mine in California" or you could help pull up others. I believe that it's worthwhile, sometimes, for me to spend some of my income to help others reach a better station.
> Do you actually think that writing software is going to be come an unskilled job some day?
Do you not? Also, there are plenty of workers in tech who aren't software developers. We should be helping them get benefits as well.
Sometimes management sure loves to treat it that way:
In my 35 years of life, it has become harder to start a union, so it isn't out of the question that it becomes harder and harder to start a union when software engineers "need to". There's no guarantee that what exists today will exist tomorrow.
Do people actually think that software engineering is going to become a job that isn't skilled, and isn't sought after?
I'm not sure why you would be so sure it wouldn't. Are the software engineers of today truly that different from the machinists of yesterday?
If you believe in the free market, then it is elementary that more people will flood into these careers which will lower the wages and diminish the bargaining power of existing software engineers.
