My Dad was involved in unions from 70s-90s. He describes things differently. In the 1970s the relationship with most companies was collaborative. When they sat

My Dad was involved in unions from 70s-90s. He describes things differently. In the 1970s the relationship with most companies was collaborative. When they sat down at the negotiating table each side wanted the best deal possible, but the union wanted the company to do well and the corporate management saw the unions as partners. Beginning in the 1980s the whole relationship changed. Companies started hiring professional tiger teams to roll in and negotiate with the most aggressive tactics possible. They began to regard the union to an impediment to profits and make every effort to undermine and break it. Corporations began to even engage in tactics like strategic bankruptcies to invalidate their union contracts and cancel their pensions. American Labor has always wanted a relationship like the one in Germany. It's aways been the other side who's resisted that. Current "Maximum Shareholder Value" theory insists that labor should have no say in how the company is run, because the only stakeholder that matters is the investor.