Another quote that particulary bothered me was "but still the same communistic agenda that unions have" Unions are democratic, we've always voted on every decision the union ever made. either by a show of hands, or secret ballot, depending on the sensitivity of the issue.
There have been a lot of things said that I have chosen not to chime in on. I have said pretty much what I have to say about this over flogged subject. HOWEVER...
Unions are very directly related to Communism as a philosophy. The opposite of Communisim is NOT Democracy. The opposite of Communism is Capitalism. Ask any communisitic government if they are democratic and they will tell you they most certainly are... and they are right. Is it good democracy? So far the answer to that IMHO is no. But unions at their very core are anti-capitalistic. True capitalism was what we had when the robber barons were running businesses that were concerned solely with turning a profit. That is what capitalism in its pure form is. The unions came along and tempered capitalism to give it a more humane bent. So, to argue that unions are not communistic is incorrect, but that is not necessarily a bad thing. There are good and bad things about communism just like there are good and bad things about capitalism (as we learned around the turn of the last century.) In very broad terms, capitalism tends to produce people that are more willing to work hard to gain what they want and communism tend to produce people that do only what they need to do to achieve the goal. No one gets more yet the talented ones are expected to produce more. "To each according to his needs, from each according to his abilities." That only works when people all think the same way and all have the same commitment to the common goal (or the common good.) Eventually the people with higher abilities tend to get angry when they get no more for their extra effort.
One thing capitalism and communism have in common -- without controls in place to prevent abuse when the wrong people are in control things get very ugly very fast.
Again, I am not anti-union. I personally think that a union for HP techs would cost us more than it would gain us, but that is just one man's opinion. For some people I am sure it would work well. It just depends on how the cost/benefit analysis turns out for each individual, and how much individuality they are willing to sacrifice to get what they want. I do not want to give up any of the flexibility I have and I am not in the least bit afraid of being replaced by someone new. The best thing to do to avoid being replaced is to convince the powers that be that you are worth more than the people they want to replace you with. I could be wrong, but I don't think I am.