Sorry about your experience - I am assuming you are referring to the trade unions primarily - for all I know they may still be like that. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that the union jobs in the auto companies were the same at that time though.
I trust (hope) that you have done ok since then. Sometimes we have to bounce around a bit before landing something decent.
I got out of the Marines in '78. After about 4 years of low-paying electronic service jobs I finally got a break.
I was (and still am) an amateur radio operator and at a club I was a member of one of the older guys told me about an fellow HAM who was a supervisor at Chrysler HQ and was starting up a department to do testing. I put in a resume to Chrysler.
Afeter about 18 months I got interviewed and because I had a Technician Class amateur radio license and a First Class Commercial Radiotelephone license (with Radar endorsement) I got hired in.
So I had a lucky break.
I can only say that the UAW has lost a lot of power, and most of the people I know understand this completely.
Damn right he is talking about trade unions and their criminal leadership!
Back in the early 70s I stood and watched a mob of Building & Trade council members burn the King of Prussia, Pa. Sheraton site to the ground.
Lennard Tose was making the unforgivable sin of hiring non union labor so they bused in their memebers from other states to "picket."
After the riot, the Feds stepped in and imprisoned quite a few of those leaders.
When I was working my favorite job as a steelworker, I knew damn well that Alan Wood Steel could not survive with the union demands. - and it did not.
I never forgave them for that.
As far as the trades went, I remember when I was working at Western Electric (CWA) that I tried to get a job as an electrician I had to be a union member.
When I went to the person in charge at the union hall, he simply told me. "You have to know somebody"
I started giving him the references of other union members when he broke in and said "You have to know me." - It will cost you a thousand bucks to know me."
Whats the difference between a union and organized crime? Ask Jimmy Hoffa.
Thanks I’ve done fine since then. I really needed a job at that time and was very qualified. It showed me that unions are in these cases patrimonies and qualifications and skills do not matter. Being a vet sure counted for nothing.