Over the years, my encounters with unions have turned me off to the concept.
While in college, I worked at an on campus office. One day, one of the fluorescent bulbs failed. We called maintenance. The next day, a guy came with a ladder into the office and just stood there. We asked what he was waiting for. He said work rules required that he have a helper hold the ladder. I could have changed the bulb myself just by reaching up. The takeaway: the work rules unions get away with are insane.
My first job out of college was at a mass transit agency, I was forced to join a union (as a mechanical engineer). There, I encounterd many things that turned me off to unions: 1) everyone at the same grade level got the same raise, regardless of performance. 2) the union protected, seemingly to the death, any poor performing union member. We had a guy who used to fall asleep in the toilet reading a newspaper. They could not get rid of him.
My mother worked at a non-union garment factory. One day, several union thugs showed up at the door and threatened the owner and my mother. They menaced the workers for several weeks, but eventually gave up.
I understand that unions did much to help workers in the early part of the 20th century, but as they gained power, the corruption became too much and they rotted from the inside. Corporate corruption is manifested by the race to the bottom to get the least number of cheap foreign workers to replace locals. Unions are weak, but even if they regained strength, they would do everything to cut off their noses to spite their faces.
It's all very depressing.
