Programmers and other I.T. professionals shun unions for one major reason: they are illogical, and make no sense, with no real purpose, value or function in a modern society with strong civil rights and a functioning legal system that will enforce the relevant laws that prevent the worst abuses and excesses. No one in the U.S. is compelled to work anywhere they do not want to, and all are free to leave their jobs for better ones, or to simply choose not to work for a bad one. The consequences of that action is purely their own, but you're still free to make the choice and determine that the pay is not worth the hardship. For us, already saddled with excess requirements, inefficient bureaucracies, non-IT literate management or corporate leadership, and everything else, this would just be intentionally putting more roadblocks and inefficiencies in the way of the very people whose job it is to leverage technology to make people more efficient, and Q.E.D., unions make no sense.
I'll be damned if I'm going to put myself in a position where I have to call someone at a union before I'm allowed to open up my PC or server case to add some more RAM, or before I can comment in some code, lest I inspire someone else's wrath or ire because I'm "threatening their job" by doing something that the union says only one person can do.
No one with the basic logic and reasoning skills necessary to pursue a successful career in computing--or any other scientific endeavor--who is not also blinded by some philosophical, religious or political propaganda could possibly perform an analysis of unions, both modern and historic, and come to the conclusion that they would be of any real benefit to themselves or their industry. Unions are just like licensing and regulation schemes that serve only as a form of protectionism from healthy competition in a free market, as well as protection from their own negligence and failure, making it difficult or outright impossible to hold them responsible for their own actions. Unions are in no way necessary to "protect workers' rights", as that is what the law is for, and what the law does,no to mention our system of political representation, whose job it is to change or introduce legislation that protects citizens. Add on top the modern advantages of educatoin for all who want it (and even for those who don't), and instantaneous communications / mass media, and the kinds of gross abuses that necessitated the rise of the first modern unions in the 30's are functionally impossible for a company to get away with these days: even Foxconn, in China of all places, finds itself unable to get away with such abuses unnoticed, yet it is exactly this kind of forced socialism that defines labor unions where such abuse becomes more possible. Let's also not forget that modern labor unions are almost indistinguishable from medieval European "Guilds" that were so reviled by the end of their time, and whose demise was in no small part responsible for the rise of modern industrialism.
Unions--membership in which, in states that support them, is generally compulsory... if you want to work, that is--have no place, benefit, or value in free market capitalism and a free and liberty-loving society. In the 30's and 40's, maybe, but those days are long since gone, and this is a different country today than it was then. They help no one but themselves, and too often are determined to be the parasite that kills the host. I simply cannot see how anyone with the capacity to work in computing for living could come to a different conclusion after an honest examination of the facts.
Oh, and in reply to Animats above... there's nothing there that shows that union as being of any tangible benefit to society at large, much less the field of animation, in a free society where people can choose their own employment at will: the guild outlived those other studios for one reason and one reason alone: political protectionism and activism. No one at EA was forced to work there: they could have chosen to work for a better company, chosen to educate themselves more to be qualified for a better job, or could have chosen another career field/opportunity. Everyone in the industry knows EA sucks to work for: Q.E.D., anyone working there knew what they were getting into, and thus either determined for themselves that the benefits outweighed the negatives (career potential from gained experience, etc.), or some other factor that made it worth it to subject themselves to such conditions. In any event, they all still retained the choice to find another job, if in another field, or to negotiate something better.
