>
> If anecdotal evidence counts for anything I've noted that what I'm being
> offered for techwriting work (both in the US and Oz) is the same today as
> it was two years ago. And I now have two more years' experience.
>
Yes... lemme guess - you have to bargain individually? The lack of collective bargaining in IT is certainly one factor in the wage curve - wages in a particular job catagory seem to stay pretty constant. The 'libertarian' argument that prevails in the industry is that if you want an increase, get another kind of job (of course there are the programmer, senior programmer, project manager distinctions, but there are also more subtle ones).
Of course, lack of collective bargaining (i.e. unions, et al.) is not just a case of IT people fooling themselves. At the Science Park in Cambridge, UK, unions are banned - try and start one, and you'll get fired. Some big biotech firms have unions in them - I think Glaxo-Wellcome does, but SmithKline Beecham doesn't, which caused all sorts of speculation when they said they were going to merge.
For younger workers in particular, the price of collective action (possibly getting fired, or blacklisted - particularly harmful if you're a contractor) is often not worth the cost, since the jobs are generally available, and you can live comfortably off the wages.
Peter -- Peter van Heusden <pvh at egenetics.com> NOTE: I do not speak for my employer, Electric Genetics "Criticism has torn up the imaginary flowers from the chain not so that man shall wear the unadorned, bleak chain but so that he will shake off the chain and pluck the living flower." - Karl Marx, 1844