Look at other unions. It's a "union" of workers so they need to have some guidelines.

Teaching for instance you know exactly how much money you'll be making over the next 20 years. Add a masters (which may or may not contribute to you being a better teacher) get a bump.

Do you believe there is a direct correlation with how long someone was working there and how productive they are? Would you like to live in this rubric? What kind of people do you think are interested in this kind of rigid rubric? It works in some places that are commoditized. A toll collector does the job, and maybe there is some merit to rewarding someone for loyalty. But programming is not that kind of job.

The best people want to work in a place where they're valued (and paid) on merit. Why shouldn't a better engineer with less formal experience be promoted above someone who has been filling a desk for the last 20 years?

> What kind of people do you think are interested in this kind of rigid rubric?

This is actually spot on. In my last gig I was working with the kind of people French job security produces. Never again.