And this is where the union threads die, every time.
Top post is essentially saying Americans/SWE are dumb for not being in a union, then comparing to other countries. As soon as someone companies US SWE salaries to these union countries it falls apart quickly.
The residents of many of these countries are able to tolerate lower salaries because they have guaranteed free/cheap at POS healthcare, stronger employment and disability protections (yes, often union-won, see Denmark), controlled and low educational expenses, and so on. Not to mention, after you get below top companies, dev earnings are much closer to other white-collar jobs
The average tech salary in Sweden is $50K-$80K from doing some quick Googling. In at major city in the US just doing run of the mill CRUD development a US developer should easily be making $130K-$150K after 3-5 years in the industry.
On the other hand, when I was at $BigTech, interns straight out of college in 2022 were being offered total comp packages of $165K and within 3 years and one promotion were making $240K and that was at Amazon. It’s nowhere near the top paying company.
Right now on my 10th job out of college I’m paying $700 a month pre-tax for family coverage through my company and even that is about the most I’ve ever paid. If I hit one with a low deductible it would be around $1100 a month.
Long Term Disability coverage if added on is around $10 a month.
But the larger point, with the discrepency between comp in the US and Sweden, a US tech worker should be able to build up an emergency fund.
Solidarity with the users of the systems you make. Collective bargaining is useful for more than salary and perk setting. It also gives you a front to push back against unethical project requests by management. Without a Union, you just get shluffed out of the way and the work gets handed off to the next sucker. With the Union, things like Google's "Don't be evil" can be more effectively enforced from the bottom.
Capital hates organized labor specifically because they have to worry about the risk of collective action, which changes the risk calculus to favor less extreme profit generating opportunities at the expense of minimizing poking the workforce the wrong way.
You alone can be ignored. You and your Union brothers, in great enough number, cannot be.
Top post is essentially saying Americans/SWE are dumb for not being in a union, then comparing to other countries. As soon as someone companies US SWE salaries to these union countries it falls apart quickly.