I'd say that succeeded at just that.
I have no problem with unions and collective negotiation. I grew up in a union family and those wages provided a good livelihood....but they were wages that came from the profitability of the company and not from the union bosses.
The downside of unions is demands for practices that are counter-productive to good business management.
The upside of unions is when the company has a great team of workers that is an important part of the company's strength. When they bargain reasonably with the interests of the company at heart, then they are a force that actually helps advance the company. When you get instead idiotic rules about who can replace a lightbulb or why a malingerer cannot be fired, then they injure a company.
I dont' know why that isn't obvious.
I've always believed that the long-term best interests of many companies would actually be some kind of profit-sharing employees (based on personal productivity) rather than wage receiving employees.
No kidding! I was doing some work on computers at a military ammunition plant run by a corporation under contract for the government... Once I had diagnosed the computer, and decided that it needed a new network card, I was not allowed to install it! The network card had to be installed by one of the plant electricians, and he had to sign off on the paperwork!
Mark