The first goal of present union leadership is socialism, internationally. American interests are, to them, of no interest. I used to be a union member; I got another job that requires no union membership - and it pays better, and I do not have to pay dues to support political agenda that oppose my interests!
The unions abused their power. Now they merely suck canal water.
I will agree that by the 70s, unions started to badly abuse the power they had, and hurt many industries, such examples are workers who made $15 hr(equivlent to $60 hr now) back in 1975 for assembly plant jobs who often had no care about quality or quanity of work.
That said, there is a balance to be had. Like it or not, unions had a fairly big role in the rise of the middle class in the US after WWII, allowed factor workers to send their childern to college, that provided a technological base the US built on. It also allowed workers to own more property, and with more to lose, they started to vote for canidates that would be for policies that allowed them to keep more oftheir properties/possesions. These workers provided the winning votes for Reagan in 1980(and in 1966 in the CA gov race), hence the Reagan Democrat. Workers who own little, who rent tend to vote in far higher percentages for Democrats, and had there not been a big middle class that rose after WWII, my guess is the US would be every bit the socialist "democracy" that France is now.
I do think with the race to the bottom in the US, with job outsorucing, importing of cheap and usually illegal labor now, more and more workers(mostly non union) will have little or nothing to lose when they vote. That is somthing that should chill many people.