This is narrative is getting more and more stale. It was definitely convincing maybe 15 years ago, now those same people are the ones spearheading unionization efforts in most US tech companies. Obviously it is always a mix of roles, but engineering roles are often the majority in most efforts, even just because they tend to be the majority of the company.
At every round of layoffs, the identity of the tech engineer as a tech worker gets stronger and stronger.
Ah but I do, I’m part of tech workers coalition. For sure there’s ground to gain, but in the last 5 years, or compared to my university years, it has been an immense change, change that is possibly still invisible from the outside. For instance, I now see tech workers a lot more prone to collective action than categories like designers, architects or chefs that are hopelessly fragmented.