Well Ok, they've done their job, now it's time to back off. They're nothing but a corporation that takes workers dues and spend the money on themselves. Then they go to employers threatening them with strikes. The Unions cave when the employers tell them they'll lay off a bunch. It's time for them to go. Companies know they need people and they do, for the most part, take care of their people.
“Early on Unions were for the workers. I read about the Pullman and Ford strikes in history. Back then they served a purpose. Child labor, kids working in mines, spinning mills.”
I’m not so sure about any of these “needs.” The reality is that each step of the way, the worker (child or miner or miller or whatever) only chose to work in those conditions because it was an improvement to his life. The child would not have left the meager farm for the smoke filled dangerous factory, if it was not a chance for him to provide a better life for himself and his family.
Just look at China today. The starving rice farmers today are migrating by droves to these factories that we call slave labor. Is it better for this farmer to starve on his 1/4 acre rice farm?
We didn’t round up children, miners, millers or whatever by gunpoint (for the most part) and force them to work in these conditions. So people voluntarily entered the workforce and improved their lot in life. If anything, the union involvement stunted the natural progression of things. Either labor is a market and I am allowed to better my own life, or I will be stunted by the union collectivism.
People like to say, “look how the unions brought everyone up” well I say prove it. How much better might things be today if left to the markets. People were already chosing to improve their lives by changing from farming to industry, why would the later generations have not done the same without union involvement?
Now, due to unions we have a generation that will be stepping backwards from their predecessors. Is that the first time in history?