when i worked at cerro tololo inter-american observatories (la serena, chile). there was a union and i was a member. seemed to work fine - they were smart people, did good work, and the wages were higher than average. nothing absurd about it.
what you describe does sound like it worked out well.
my opinion is that there is enough demand for good programmers for the market to determine good wages/benefits. the usps union in question is working on a new contract. rumor has it they are agreeing to a whopping 3.5% raise spread over 5 years. the last annual raise was 1.2%!
there are a large percentage of "obsolete" CoBOL programmers that weren't transitioned properly to web applications. many of whom perform non-technical/light-duty tasks. the mostly younger folks carry the majority of the load. it's mostly a result of incompetent management whom never enforce accountability.
For wages I agree, but I think things like changing what's "normal" in employment contracts and working conditions are one thing that you often get from a union which tech has been lacking. I'm not sure of the overall pros/cons, but to make significant pushback on things like noncompetes (where "significant" means more than a small % of people managing to write them out of their contracts) would require collective action of one sort or another imo--- either some kind of union, or else directly via government (like CA's law on the subject).
The IRS has unionized workers. 5 weeks vaca, 3 weeks sick pay, overtime.. It's a sweet gig and deserves to be - they control the biggest money collection in the world.
The benefits are great at the USPS. However, salaries aren't great. It's difficult to witness much of the waste of deadbeat full-timers and even some incompetent staffed contractors. Outsourcing to Accenture and IBM are often just massive give-aways with no-bid contracts. It's a demoralizing environment along with finicial state of the Postal Service.
Managers have the same benefits. Plus, they get to telecommute 2-3 days a week! Since that benefit was given a year or so ago many of the managers have become even more disconnected with their job.
Managers also get bonuses which they deny. The bonuses are called "pay for performance". That's a joke because the metrics used for the PFP bonuses are ridiculous and encourage micromanaging which creates resentment towards supervisors. The entire workforce is demoralized. For most, it's difficult to leave the benefits.
