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It could use the Hollywood unions as a model, at least partly. The Screen Actors Guild for example doesn't limit actors' ability to negotiate salaries independently but does allow for freelancers to get health insurance paid through employment in a larger network.

There are other benefits too. Elimating crunch without overtime.

That's an interesting point. I have friends in the movie makin' business and should ask how their unions work in terms of benefits, negotations, etc. The jobs all seems to be split into individual films as independent businesses so to a software contractor there would be a lot of similarities.

And open office plans.

Edit: Also, compile times. Get your C++ devs a goddamn build server or else even I'd join the union.

Here in Sweden, engineers are generally unionized (including software engineers) as Sveriges Ingenjörer (Sweden's Engineers).

The union negotiates minimum benefits, such as working hours, overtime rules, vacation time, pension contributions, and so on. The companies are free to offer more.

They also collect salary statistics (which you can slice by industry, age, experience, area, and a bunch of other stuff), to help you decide whether or not an offer is competitive.