When techies consider unions By Aliza Earnshaw, The Business Journal of Portland The very notion of a labor union for software developers and other information-technology workers may strike some as paradoxical, or even ridiculous. After all, techies are thought of as well-compensated, highly skilled workers. So the beginnings of a techie labor union here in the Portland area, called ORTech, may come as a surprise to many who work with or are themselves high-tech workers. "THEY [TECHIES] THINK of themselves as highly skilled individuals who are valued for what they are," said Ilya Ratner, a programmer with years of experience...