I think many if not most union members are more conservative then the union’s leadership. Certainly more conservative than the staff members hired as administrators-most of whom are left-wing liberal arts majors from private schools or large public universities.
The reason they don’t decertify is best summarized by an old timer I worked with many years ago. “Even the worst union with corrupt leaders is better than no union at all”.
Well the old timer was wrong but he came into the work force as a young man straight out of the CCC camps in the middle 1930’s and landed his first full time job in a company that was unionized. He believed the union got him this job not the company.
While I agree that for the most part Unions today are evil, at one time they were not. They were needed. I don't care how you cut it, to be able to fire someone just because you can is not good business, but all companies used to do that, they would give work hours to relatives, make people stand around for hours waiting to unload trucks but only pay them for the time it took to unload, not the 6 hours spent waiting for the truck to show up.
Companies did many bad things to people working for them and so Unions were formed to combat the unfair conditions in which they were expected to work.
Using the old saw that people could go to work for someone else is BS because they were all the same. Unions forced non Union shops to treat their people better through fear of being Unionized.
Unions at one time were supposed to work the way our government is supposed to work: The workers were the governing faction, but that changed.
The mob gained control of Unions, things got out of hand and we ended up with Unions like the long shore mans Union and the Auto workers.
Industry has only themselves to blame for what happened with Unions, had they treated people fairly no worker in their right mind would have ever voted to certify a Union.
What young people see today and what the situation was when Unions gained a foothold are vastly different situations.