Certainly, the gross salary for information technology positions can be generous, but that salary can be heavily garnished -- sometimes up to 50 percent of the total paycheck -- by staffing firms and headhunters that many companies rely on for HR needs. Then there are the other miscellaneous pitfalls of the less-than-ideal information technology job: non-compete clauses, few long-term career paths and demands to stay current on new technologies or risk being replaced by someone significantly younger.

In other professions, issues like pay, career trajectory and job security were addressed by forming unions, but those drawn to the IT sector have been resistant to this approach. Unions are often seen as emblematic of the bureaucracies of the past. The idea that some complex process could stand in the way of independent accomplishment is anathema to the fundamentals of the libertarian, self-made, DIY, hacker culture.

However, technology and engineering unions do exist. WashTech represents a portion of Microsoft employees. Alliance@IBM, possibly one of the oldest computer technology unions, represents IBM employees. Then there's IEEE for electrical engineers, which has some union-like characteristics, the Programmer's Guild aimed at bettering the programmer profession and the Freelancer's Union for those technical workers who operate on their own. But these groups represent a tiny fraction of the total workforce. Out of the approximate 3,000,000 tech workers in the United States, maybe 5,000 in total are union members. Compare this to coverage of other highly-skilled trade unions, like the Screen Actor's Guild or the American Federation of Teachers, both of which currently represent the majority of employees in those occupations.

So why are tech nerds reluctant to organize? Maybe there's something inherent to computer programming that creates and reinforces ardent individualism. Or maybe the addictive appeal of completing intellectually challenging work on a daily basis is reward enough that compensation becomes an afterthought.

But technology workers' hesitance to unionize is not purely a reflection of their personalities, but also likely a consequence of the disregard for unions and technology in the era following the Air Traffic Controllers Strike of 1981.

Air traffic control is a good example of a profession with highly-skilled, technology workers serving in critical positions. When the air traffic controllers refused to work in 1981, citing long, stressful hours for uneven pay, they brought the entirety of the airline industry down with them.

It was an illegal strike but one that the workers thought would appeal to populist sentiment. The union assumed that they had an ally in Reagan, who was a lifelong union member with the Screen Actors Guild and came to office with labor backing. But Reagan flipped the script. He immediately fired all 11,345 air traffic controllers following a half-hearted attempt at negotiation, then he blacklisted all the former workers and brought in a ready team of replacements. Flights were back running in a matter of days.