They're terrible at their jobs. They're really good at getting what they want TODAY. But they piss people off and no one wants to do business with them in the long term. Their whole business model is to monopolize labor so that you can't do business with anyone else. And using that as leverage they just make fucking rediculious demands. You're left with two options... either give them what they want or you have no labor period. Well... that's not fucking acceptable. If I could do business with a dozen different unions and none of them wanted to give me my price that would be one thing. But if I can only deal with ONE union then its the same as dealing with one corporation. They're under no pressure to be reasonable because you have no options.
That applies to staffing agencies, which are no more different than labor unions - yet don't get crushed. Same bad representation for the staff under them, bad contracts for the larger part, and nobody really gets a good deal in the process.
Why do staffing agencies, temporary labor and the like get a pass despite being a union in every function save for being an employer's tool of evasion? Perhaps they need their PATCO moment so that they finally die or evolve beyond benefits-evasion.
And that just inspires companies to think of ways to get away from that bullshit. The big drive to outsource everything to asia is in large part a consequence of the unions. They drove labor over seas. And once the unions in the US are no longer a factor, we should see a significant return of that manufacturing etc to the US. It is already starting. We're seeing a lot of manufacturing theft in the South East and South West... specifically in states where the unions are weak.
You're wrong. Unions are strong in the South, just that they're the ones that represent employers and only employers that abide by the South's playbook.
For example, Volkswagen talks about setting up workers councils, and the entire South's political interests go into an apoplectic fit. The Tennessee state legislature and various political groups intimidated them near instantly; if they unionized, Volkswagen risked losing economic preferences along with other forms of intimidation towards workers. If Volkswagen succeeded, everything and the kitchen sink would be thrown at them to financially fail, as done in the 19th and early 20th Century.
Theft from the South killed the rust belt. The reason it went to rust in the first place is because the South built its economy on theft of Northern business.
Fixed that you to correct for fact.
Someone has to do the maintenance for the buses.