I am all for free market philosophy. I oppose the union philosophy of protectionism and artificially inflated wages. I lived in Chicago for 37 years and have witnessed dozens and dozens of boarded up factories, every one of them had a union.
Except every founding father of this great country believed in protectionism. This country thrived under protectionism.
I would not consider a transplant like you an authority on freedom or what made this country great and powerful.
As for those factories you so gleefully went past, even in when union membership peaked around 1970, only about 20% of those factory workers were in a union. 80% were non union. Now only 10% of factory workers are union workers. 90% are non union.