Unions were a good thing when they were genuinely trying to get workers decent living wages, decent hours, safer working conditions, and workman's compensation when risky working conditions resulted in injury or permanent disablement (read Upton Sinclair's THE JUNGLE).
When unions began, they pushed for and got decent working conditions, and a widespread realization of the American Dream.
But over the last 50 years, unions have gotten greedy and pushed for concessions way beyond what was needed.
Then again, the escalation of the demands made by unions over time would suggest that their principle goals were to be greedy and manipulative from the get go. The state of unions today is the logical extension of the unions of the past.
The whole mindset behind organizing a group of people that holds its labor hostage--after their cooperation with the company they signed up with had already been agreed upon--is to nurture a cause that's built on the idea of controlling one's employer and his or her bottom line. They did that before and they're doing it now with more severity.
