Late last year, we asked you if technologists should unionize. Your ‘yes’ vote was clear, and now it’s starting to happen. Well, kinda.

In Pittsburgh, employees of IT firm HCL Technologies have chosen to unionize, and have joined the United Steelworkers union. Only about 80 technologists took part in the effort, but Wired reports United Steelworkers says this group is one of the first in tech to actually unionize.

The twist? Many of these folks work at Google offices in Pittsburgh as analysts for Google Shopping. Google spokesperson Jenn Kaiser told Wired: “We work with lots of partners, many of which have unionized workforces, and many of which don’t. As with all our partners, whether HCL’s employees unionize or not is between them and their employer.”

HCL reportedly launched a heavy anti-unionization campaign leading up to its employees voting to join, with Googlers allegedly asking their company to denounce those efforts by HCL.

The fear among workers, of course, is Google may choose to end its HCL contract. We can’t say what their contract entails, but if measurables aren’t hit because union negotiations stall work, it’s possible that may constitute a breach of contract argument. HCL employees apparently decided to unionize because they “deserve more respect, dignity and democracy in our relationship with our employer,” said HCL staffer Joshua Borden. “We look forward to bargaining a contract that reflects our important contributions to HCL’s continuing success.”

Around 66 percent of respondents to an anonymous Dice Insights survey said they want a tech pro union. This is in direct juxtaposition to a Blind survey of tech professionals at large tech firms such as Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and Apple, which found 66 percent (overall) do not want to unionize. “Amazon had the highest percentage (39.1 percent) of tech employees who believe they need a union,” Blind said of its findings. “Rounding out the three companies with the highest percentage of tech employees indicating that they need unions are Oracle and Microsoft, with 38.5 percent and 36.5 percent respectively.”

We’ve seen what a grassroots tech pro union looks like; the first pass was clumsy. It was also limited to iOS developers in an effort to encourage Apple to do things like allow free trials for apps, and provide a revenue split that was more beneficial to folks actually building apps. Some of the wish-list items this “union” laid out happened, but not because of its efforts.

It’s also worth pointing out that iOS consortium has since dissolved, showing that banding together doesn’t always deliver on the idealism that brought people into a group in the first place. It all illuminates how tech is probably not ready to unionize in broad strokes, but there are enclaves within the industry willing to join existing unions (or form their own, as Kickstarter staffers did) when conditions just aren’t right.

Companies are still in control, and it's clear most technologists are happy with conditions... for now.