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I dont' think SnarkyBog would disagree with much I'll say here.

I have at times wished there could be an employee union without the negative connotations. Sadly, that's never going to happen. It will always escalate over time to the point, you'd have just the same type of union activity you have now.

Isn't it interesting, that neither unions or the big four (socialism, communism, marxism, or islam) can exist without the tacit threat of destruction or violence?

Unions are established via threat. "We are forming a group, and you will not be able to hire anyone outside this group. You will meet our demands, or we will close your business. Sign here..."

Of course the big promise up front, is that normal people will wind up with abnormally high standards of living. Never-mind about the part where the business can't compete, can't sell it's merchandise to the public, and it has to close down. Once you're in a union, try bucking the union policy. If you happen to understand where the employer is coming from when he says he can barely compete as it is, and can't give up any more, you're viewed to be an enemy of the other union employees. And then it can get very ugly.

Contrastingly, Capitalism exists through mutual respect and agreement.

The business owner makes an offer. The employee accepts the offer. If at some point either should be dissatisfied with the workplace relationship, the relationship can be broken. Employees can leave without cause. The employer can terminate without cause. Employers aren't going to bother breaking your legs, burning your home down, or anything of this type, because they can terminate the relationship, just like you can.

You can leave and take a job for more money. The employer can let you go and hire someone who will work for the same salary or less.

If you go no farther than this, you know enough to make a valid accurate decision regarding unions. And yet, there's more.

1. unions make big promises
2. unions make big threats
3. unions make unreasoned demands
4. unions can and do cause detrimental pressures on businesses
5. unions control the employee
6. unions can institute clandestine violence against it's members
7. unions can call strikes, when many of it's members would rather not
8. unions can make demands, when many members disagree on point
9. unions can and do support causes, when many members disagree
10. unions can and do spread their money around in ways the average union employee doesn't know
11. unions stick together, even across the boundaries of like jobs, or like interests
12. unions frequently ask other unions to go out on strike in sympathy with a union during a dispute
13. unions can and do make the most absurd demands because they can, and they get these demands
14. unions have no compunction to take their own members into consideration as they do this stuff
15. unions can participate and actually devise large protests against sound government policy
16. unions combine the above tactics to do what is in the single or combined union leaderships best interest
17. unions, it is my opinion that the massive A.N.S.W.E.R. rallies held in the United States, A.C.O.R.N., and literally hundreds of other (union related or not) entities, are merely fronts for union activity. It is further my opinion, that many of the people on the street participating in these activities are getting monetary, college credit, or other forms of perks or payment for their participation. In some instances, that may include a provision that people participate or lose certain perks they have already been receiving.

This isn't to say that everything is perfect under the Capitalist model. I do think things happen under the Capitalist model that are wrong. It's the extremes that bother me. Capitalism works best within closed or relatively equal societies. When you start trying to implement it between two different nations with totally different living standards, Capitalist policies can and do be come very corrosive, destructive. Trade for materials works best when dealing with this type of unbalanced relationship.

That's my take on it.