I have had many friends who work in fields which required them to join unions in the US (engineering, law enforcement, education, entertainment, etc), and I hav

I have had many friends who work in fields which required them to join unions in the US (engineering, law enforcement, education, entertainment, etc), and I have never heard anyone say anything positive about them. At best, they suck a few dollars per month from your paycheck. Most commonly, they prevent the bad apples from ever being fired, no matter how blatant their behavior. Or a non-union person is not allowed to do a trivial task (like move a chair) because it's "union work". At worst, if union management decides to make you the target of a witch hunt, they can make it hell to try to find work in that field at any workplace in their jurisdiction. Who protects workers from the union itself? I accept that unions have had a valuable place in society, and they're definitely still good for some things, but I don't believe their poor reputation today is "corporate propaganda". They seem to be one of those types of organizations that have outlived their original purpose, mostly, and now exist to propagate themselves. Ultimately, it's just another power structure. The structure is neither good nor bad. What matters is the people. ("The machinery of government is always subordinate to the will of those who administer that machinery.") Like every organization, over time they tend to collect the type of people who take advantage of that power structure.