For those that think unions are weak in the United States do a little checking into the craft unions for the railroad. The union efforts are not as weak as you would like to think.
Now the interesting part is that the unions are working together with the carrier companies to insure profitablity of the company. This is probably one of the most important aspects of the union environment. Negotations with the company to insure not only the worker is taken care of, but that the company remains in existance so that the worker can continue working, and that the pension funds for the Union continue to grow so that the craft members can draw a decent retirement income.
A labor union has no business telling the elected government to sit down and shut up. Even if its an elected collective - primarily because its not an representive collective. That is a labor union that has gotten out of control and has lost its most important function - that of collective bargaining. It also forgets the main principle of keeping their members employed - that the government must have tax revenues to collect which requires companies to have a profit marigin of some sort to re-invest into capital to maintain the company.
While strong unions are an execellent benefit to the wage earner - one must be careful of allowing the labor union's collective bargaining to circumvent the ability for the company or the government to survive. Because with out the income source the labor union does not have anything to bargain for.
