Back in the 60’s & 70’s Chicago was transformed from an industrial city to a wasteland of closed factories which all moved to “right to work” states in south.
But did the unions learn? Nope! The membership may have learned, but the union bosses seldom do.
Yes it was pretty much a closed loop system.
Richly reward the unionized city/state employees, and they GOTV and contribute to politicians. And repeat.
Several years ago it was polled that over 40% of union members voted Republican, and the last I heard the Union membership had fallen somewhere between 10-15% of “workers”. I grew up with no respect for the word, “workers”.