If you can become an enemy of the union simply by being good at your individual-contributor job, maybe that's why unions haven't really taken off in software engineering.
I'd venture a guess that the variance in quality between a set of "professional" electricians and another set of "professional" developers is different by an order of magnitude.
Said another way, I can go down to the union hall and pick an electrician randomly and have a great deal more confidence in that person's ability than I could choosing a random developer off of LinkedIn to write my application.
I think certifications have something to do with this, but it's also the complete lack of understanding of what makes someone a good developer by management... this is entirely the fault of management and I don't blame a developer for trying to "fake it til you make it."
