“Conservatives and Tea Partiers’ anti-union public policies do not have the end goal of breaking up unions but of correcting some of the problems that have resulted from union overreach.”
Speak for yourself, pal. I see NO REASON at all for allowing unions to spend one more day in existence - and that applies to both public and private sector unions. If you HATE your boss, then take your skills elsewhere. Every white-collar person understands that - so what’s so hard about workers understanding it too?
As for the “good things” that unions have brought in the past...like safer workplaces - they are enshrined by law and punishable by jail and lawsuits (when the law isn’t followed). That applies to union shops and it applies to non-union shops. Unions simply have no relevance there.
Unions have a right to exist, but only to the extent that they depend entirely on voluntary association. If a guy can convince all the workers at a plant that they should walk if management doesn't offer a pay raise, fine. But if management wants to fire any worker who even threatens to strike, that should be its prerogative. And if any worker decides to sabotage or disrupt operations by any means other than his decision to quit, or if a worker quits without giving contractually-required notice, the business owner should sue him.
Unions were a good thing when they had to be. When union workers knew that making unreasonable demands in a labor market that could replace them in a day would simply land them on the unemployment line, they had a strong incentive to be reasonable in their demands. Unfortunately, some bozos gave unions the power of government to protect them from competition, to the detriment of everyone including union workers.