I come from a country (the Soviet Union) where all workers were required to join unions. After immigrating, my father joined a company where all the labour was part of a union. He refused to join the union and has for over 30 years been the only non-union member (the circumstances allowed it). That's how much we hate unions.

Unions are nothing more than parasites which serve only the union bosses. They certainly hurt workers. They amount to a labour monopoly, keeping out non-members and contribute to general unemployment. They deny the individual employee the right to negotiate his own compensation and to compete with other workers. Because most labour unions negotiate compensation based on seniority rather than merit and for all workers as if all human beings are the same and interchangeable, workers are have incentive to do only the bare minimum. For this pleasure, the workers pay a substantial fee to their Union overlords. Like parasites, they suck the life out of companies and labour alike and when the company sputters under the weight of the union and becomes less competitive, the union members lose their jobs. If, as socialists (who now hate being called socialists but who are just the same) had their way, labour unions would represent all labour. So what of the workers who lost their jobs because of union enforced inefficiency? Why, they remain unemployed. It's not the union's problem. If they aren't employed, they aren't members of the union anymore and aren't the union's problem. If you don't believe me, take a look at Europe.

So, if you want to talk about unintended consequences, the unintended consequences of unions for labour are far worse than any real or imagined unintended consequences of busting the unions. If that were not true, then union membership wouldn't be in a persistent decline. Now, for the marginal worker with no motivation (what employers like myself call "dead weight" and fire), the demise of unions is a bad thing. But then, if you can't motivate yourself to actually perform the job for which you were hired, then you don't deserve to keep the job. There are other workers who are more willing, more competent and more deserving. Personally, I've worked in union shops before and I would rather eat my own head than join a union and everyone I have met in my lifetime who has been faced with that question has changed jobs, if necessary, rather than join. Few institutions are as dehumanizing, humiliating, self-serving and deserving of a gutting as unions.

As for the contracts, I'll admit that they are not always good negotiators.

Methinks:
Depends on what part of the nation and who you ask. While there are many places that have prospered, they do not forget the cost.

For what that means today, I'm suspicious of both major candidates- even if one sounds like William Jennings Bryan.

What the dominant liberal media (and Sethstorm) don't like to mention is that the PATCO strike was illegal and that Reagan told them that if the went on strike that they'd be fired. They didn't believe him.

I have no problem with private-sector unions going on strike, but I do want government to be neutral. If a businses whose labor went on strike wants to replace those workers, then it's up to labor to convince the customers of that business, and the labor that's willing to replace the strikers that their strike is justified. If there are enough people willing to take the job at the wages and benefits offered by the company, that would indicate to me that the union just priced itself out of business.

One other thing that Sethstorm and big labor never like to talk about are the fourteen-week paid vacations, and tonnage benefits paid on made steel rather than sellable steel, which resulted in tonnage bonuses being paid on steel that was sent right back into the mill to be melted down for a second (or third) try to get it right, all the while garnering one or two more tonnage bonuses before a product was even sold. I'm sure those kinds of contracts had nothing to do with the demise of Big Labor.

I have seen some gross mistakes in this coments section about argentina, for example that alfonsin was a dictator. He was a failure, but not a dictator.

If u wish to learn more about argentina's economy from the perspective of an austrian go to my blog argentineaneconomy.blogspot.com where I have lots of graphs and data.

Best.