They missed the boat by first and foremost: the labor movement has a strange history of exclusion. While not nearly as true now up until the 50s and 60s labor u

They missed the boat by first and foremost: the labor movement has a strange history of exclusion. While not nearly as true now up until the 50s and 60s labor unions where reluctant to unionize with women, people of color etc. as a united front with white male workers. In short, they screwed up here, bad. Their second biggest mistake was not targeting middle management and white collar workers. Unions for a long time targeted only wage workers and/or workers in blue collar industries. The truth is, they would have held far more power if they were inside the office too, and middle management is key here. They treat all "management" as the enemy, instead of recognizing the potential that union members all in the management chain could be useful allies. Thirdly, they're too antagonist when they do want to act in force. While I will fully cede its justified, because corporations are antagonists as well, it didn't have to be this way. There's a world where unions could be real business stake holders representing labor in a more direct way in the business and making workers equal partners. Seat on the board, board transparency, ability to bring board / executive issues to members etc. Those would have been far more valuable to workers than the always fighting mentality focused on extracting rather than sharing in the profits. This in particular feels like a uniquely American problem with organized labor relations though. Countries like Germany and Denmark handle this remarkably well by comparison. That said, going into these things defensively is the only thing that works in today's atmosphere, and I don't blame them, I wish though, we followed a better model on both sides.