I'm not opposed to unionizing - in fact I think cooperative models are underutilized in the tech industry.
What I am saying is unionizing wouldn't stop offshoring. The reality is the world in 2026 is much more developed than the world when you graduated (I'm guessing 2009).
As such, skills that were worth a premium in 2011-16 aren't viewed as differentiators and more as table stakes knowledge.
Essentially, Unionization doesn't help if it doesn't also increase barriers to entry.
I have no incentive to hire someone in NC or IL for a premium who isn't actually a top performer, when I can gladly hire someone of better caliber for less in the UK or Switzerland even with supposed workers benefits (though in action, they're largely comparable for SWEs across North America and Western Europe).
Frankly, I would much rather hire a CS new grad from TU Munich over a CS new grad from Random State University even if this means I have to deal with German labor laws, because the calibre I am getting from the TUM student is on par with what I'd get out of Stanford or MIT for a fraction of the cost.
Additionally, most countries are expanding their subsidizes to incentivize companies to build R&D centers and bring IP-driven industries there. American state and local governments have largely quit that game in order to concentrate on culture war politicking (my experiences with NC's state government left a really bad taste in my mouth after attempting domestic inshoring in the late 2010s and early 2020s).
So in this kind of world where companies are perfectly fine decamping to other jurisdictions who give the red carpet, what is the solution? It isn't unionization (it isn't a blocker from a hiring perspective for IP-driven industries but it also doesn't stop offshoring), but it's about stable governance and risk management at the state and local level, which is where companies interface the most.
It will also require accepting that developer salaries have to reduce significantly - I can't justify training someone from scratch at US$100K TC, but I can at US$75K TC.
What I am saying is unionizing wouldn't stop offshoring. The reality is the world in 2026 is much more developed than the world when you graduated (I'm guessing 2009).
As such, skills that were worth a premium in 2011-16 aren't viewed as differentiators and more as table stakes knowledge.
Essentially, Unionization doesn't help if it doesn't also increase barriers to entry.
I have no incentive to hire someone in NC or IL for a premium who isn't actually a top performer, when I can gladly hire someone of better caliber for less in the UK or Switzerland even with supposed workers benefits (though in action, they're largely comparable for SWEs across North America and Western Europe).
Frankly, I would much rather hire a CS new grad from TU Munich over a CS new grad from Random State University even if this means I have to deal with German labor laws, because the calibre I am getting from the TUM student is on par with what I'd get out of Stanford or MIT for a fraction of the cost.
Additionally, most countries are expanding their subsidizes to incentivize companies to build R&D centers and bring IP-driven industries there. American state and local governments have largely quit that game in order to concentrate on culture war politicking (my experiences with NC's state government left a really bad taste in my mouth after attempting domestic inshoring in the late 2010s and early 2020s).
So in this kind of world where companies are perfectly fine decamping to other jurisdictions who give the red carpet, what is the solution? It isn't unionization (it isn't a blocker from a hiring perspective for IP-driven industries but it also doesn't stop offshoring), but it's about stable governance and risk management at the state and local level, which is where companies interface the most.
It will also require accepting that developer salaries have to reduce significantly - I can't justify training someone from scratch at US$100K TC, but I can at US$75K TC.