My mother really didn't like unions. She was in one, and helped out, but resented that it basically helped (as she put it) "those fat slobs." The people who ran the union had always run the union, and basically liked the power, she said, and were entirely self serving. This was the late '60s and early '70s.
Her take: That the unions were there to prevent gross abuses in the workplace and make things safer while ensuring decent, reasonable benefits. Along the way, the goal of the unions became to gain more power for the unions; instead of preventing gross abuses the union made sure that management was hemmed in to prevent the possibility of any abuse, to make sure that nobody was ever asked to do one erg of work more than the contract allowed. In order to prevent workplace accidents, safety rules became nearly onerous.
So my mother's job was to collect samples of steel and check the plating and other surface properties. If somebody missed cutting a sample off a coil of sheet steel then she had to find somebody to do it for her. It was easy--you go up to the coil, you cut a piece off the edge, and that's that. But she wasn't allowed to do it. Sometimes she did. But if a union rep was around she'd ask for the appropriate person to come and cut off the chunk of steel. If there was only one, she might have to wait for hours. If it was early in a run, they'd run thousands of yards of steel before she could report back--and if the plating was wrong, they'd take those hours of production and send them back as scrap.
She came home one day spitting nails. The guy who was supposed to cut the piece of steel from coils was out sick overnight. Then the guy who came in in the morning had some problem and didn't get the samples cut quickly. She finally got the results of nearly 20 hours of production out and the entire run had to be scrapped. Scores of tons of sheet steel unacceptable for canned goods. They'd miss the contract for either that order or the next. The union guys, she said, just laughed. If it hurt the company it was funny. She was concerned that they'd lose the contract--and since they were already shutting down for 2 weeks every summer because of a lack of orders, she was worried. A year later her job was harder--she had to split her time between two mills because they lost that contract, one they'd had for 20 years. The guys who laughed? They retired. Five or six years later the only people working there were security guards.
Similarly with safety regs, e.g. steel-toed shoes and safety glasses. She'd spend hours in the "lab", such as it was and hours filling out reports. But since the union had the entire lab area designated as "lab", she had to wear safety glasses during her entire shift. Not just out on the floor or while dealing with reagents, where there could be some hazard to sight. In the lab the worst that could happen was to drop a flask on her foot. A pickle jar weighed more. But the contract had the entire building classified as a safety zone so she had to wear steel-toed boots not only because a flask might be dropped on her foot, but because she might drop a pen. So she'd sit there, at her desk, wearing steel-toed shoes and heavy safety glasses for hours because, well ... because the union made the company do it. Nobody liked it, but it was inconvenient for the company and showed the company who was boss.
Her point: Give men power, owners or unions, and they'll make sure they get as much power as they can and make sure things are run entirely for their own good--regardless of who gets hurt. (Later in life she finally amended that to something like "Give people power," but when I was growing up only men could be so petty.) A pox on both their houses.
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