Ugh, the CWA! I worked as a programmer at newspaper years ago and was forced to be in the CWA. The pay raise thing sucked--if you worked your ass off you got a 2.5% raise annually, if you sat around doing nothing you got a 2.5% raise annually. So, the only way to get a industry competitive raise was to get promoted--which, because of the union, went by seniority. Their big selling point was, "you get great benefits for free!" Yeah, but the "free benefits" cost as much as the union dues, so it was a wash. Then, to add insult to injury, when lay-offs rolled around the union didn't do a thing--they just let us get laid off (there were thirteen rounds of lay-offs altogether, I went on round five--and the guy who laid me off went on round six).
Quite frankly, I steer away from any IT job that requires I join a union just because of how crappy being in the CWA was (I've asked if there is a union in every interview I've had since then).