I think it's one of the big myths of working in a private company that somehow it's super-efficient, that there are major opportunities for success by default.

I think it's one of the big myths of working in a private company that somehow it's super-efficient, that there are major opportunities for success by default. I've worked at plenty of companies which had huge inefficiencies (meetings 6hrs a day, forty approvals to get anything done etc etc), which held back individual success and were generally not meritocracies. I think you find that all organisations with many humans involved all have inefficiencies but the media seems to love painting unions as the inefficient ones. I'm a member of union (Australia) as a web developer, it doesn't interfere with my day to day working, negotiations or my work ethic but it's like having a backup lawyer in case there are problems with the workplace and I need some advice.