At one time, unions were what in Marxist terms would be the historic compromise. They gave labor the right to collectivise in the form of a union to counter capital’s right to collectivise in the form of the corporation. Where it is an economic question only, collective bargaining works; the only way the union makes money is if the company makes enough money to pay them. So, they have some mutual interests.

Where it all goes awry is when governent and politics get involved. So, Acme Enterprises is resisting being organized by the Amalgamated Widget Makers and is resisting the organization effort. The Amalgamated Widget Makers gave a bunch of money to the Governor. The AWM calls their friend the Governor who calls his hack the Commissioner of Labor and suddenly the Wage and Hour investigators and OSHA inspectors descend on Acme. Acme gets a call from the Business Manager of the AWM who tells him how easy it would be to make all those problems go away and advises him to be sure to read the morning paper. The lead article on the Daily Cage Liner is about the unsafe sweat shop Acme is running. That doesn’t have to go on long before Acme is a nice, safe unionized employer. Before long, Acme is working with the union on getting government contracts, promulgating regulations to bar entry into widget making, putting up licensure requirements for Widget Installers. It just goes on and on. And don’t even get me started on how much worse it is in the public sector.