It's too bad it doesn't actually work like that. If unions were like a plague of locusts you could unleash on some monopolist and have them pick the bones clean

It's too bad it doesn't actually work like that. If unions were like a plague of locusts you could unleash on some monopolist and have them pick the bones clean in an afternoon, they'd be an extremely useful tool in getting rid of those companies. Meanwhile in practice they do what they did to the 20th century US automakers, i.e. decades-long stagnation while their customers suffer from the continued consolidated market until some foreign competition finally shows up to eat their lunch.