In 1959, fresh out of high school, I got my first job loading boxes containing suitcases onto railway cars at Schwayder Bro's on South Broadway. The owner, Jesse Schwayder, had an office right next to the production floor. His office door was always open and you could walk in at any time to ask questions, makes suggestions or complain about something. Every Christmas he would take a certain percentage of the profits and distribute them to the employees, the amount being bases on the years of service. It generally amounted to a month's salary if business was good, two weeks if not.
The day shift back then usually ended about 5 or 5:30PM. About 3:30PM one summer day I saw a bunch of employees of Gates Rubber Co, which was on the West side of Broadway, opposite of Schwayder's, cross Broadway carrying signs. On the signs were claims like "Schwayder's Unfair to workers", etc... They began marching outside Schwayder's front entrance and along the Broadway side. I'd never heard anyone complain about pay or working conditions, but the marchers were making many such claims. This went on for a couple months. Some recent hires began claiming and complaining about various things, always with the solution that a Union would treat workers better. They stirred up such fuss that after about a year an election was held. The union was defeated. Then the marchers consisted of Gates employees and fired or laid off Schwayder employees.
After several elections the union was voted in. One could no longer walk into Jesse's office and talk. Employees had to take their complaints to the shop steward of the section they were in. The stewards, if they liked your request, would take it to the top union rep. If he liked it then he'd go see Jesse, otherwise you were talking to the wall. Christmas bonuses stopped. Employees were docked 2% of their annual wages as union dues IF they were union members. Not everyone joined the union. However, if you were not in the union you could NOT go to Jesse nor to a shop steward. You couldn't represent yourself and you had no representation. During economic slow periods anyone could be laid off except shop stewards or the top union rep. They had guaranteed jobs.
The union pushed for a closed shop. They eventually got it. First, those not in the union found their job performance criticized. Sound familiar? They were laid off or fired, not by Jesse, but by the shop stewards. Eventually, only union workers worked at Schwayders. It was a closed shop and voted itself to remain so. You can vote a union in but you can't vote it out. That, too, is familiar political outcome. Suitcase quality suffered, which affected sales, which affected revenue, which affected employment conditions. Getting too old to fight all the time, Jesse sold Schwayder's in 1971 and walked away. It was sold 5 times in the twenty years before it filed for bankruptcy in 2009.