When I worked in Florida designing building mechanical systems, I always preferred to have the union shops do the implementation. The union had a strong apprenticeship program, so all the workers were qualified, and followed best practices to a tee. They worked hard, and took pride in their work. For this they made about 20% more than the non-union shops, who picked up whoever off the street, and cut corners when you weren't looking. The premium was worth every penny.
The UAW, on the other hand, is a bad joke. You say management gets the union they deserve? Well, it's not 1936 anymore, and that's where the UAW was stuck, and is only a little better now. They obtained legal monopoly power, and used it to devastating effect. The companies are forbidden from working together, so when the union strikes one of them, they have to cave, because the sales they lose to their competitors will never be recouped.
You could fill a book with stories, but I'll share a few. In 1993, times were good, so the companies were making money, and agreed to a contract that virtually guaranteed employment, and turned labor in to a fixed cost. The union repaid the generosity with a series of targeted strikes that caused massive disruption to the supply chain. The domestics had adopted the "just in time" manufacturing strategy pioneered by the Japanese. But where it gave the non-union transplants great efficiency gains, it meant that a strike at one GM plant caused the closure of 130 other plants, put 200,000 employees out of work (making most of their regular pay), and cost GM $2 Billion that could have been spent on product development.
Just recently, I did a technology show at one of the Big Three. The room needed to be rearranged from classroom seating to a more open layout. We waited 45 minutes for the proper union members to show up to move the tables, but when it got close to show time, we just moved the tables ourselves. Of course, just as we finished, they showed up, bitching about our rules violations and threatening to file a grievance. I'm sure they had a good laugh at us doing their work for them, and feeling fearful for doing so. That would never happen at Toyota or VW facility; without a union, common sense can prevail and the work can get done in a reasonable fashion.
I have seen with my own eyes workers asleep in cars on the plant floor, assisted by deliberate sabotage that halted the line. While the line was stopped, work rules prohibited anyone from doing anything productive, including clean up after themselves; that was the job of the sweeper.
Speaking of sweepers, my father in law was a millwright, a craftsman and artisan. He was the one they called when the $4 million machine that makes $100 a minute went down, and he would bring it back on line with a quickness. He made exactly the same as the idiot who got to goof off because he was worthless, and $1 an hour more than the sweeper who was nowhere to be found when there was sweeping to be done. That wasn't management's fault, they wanted to reward good performance, but union rules they had to swallow prevented it.
The UAW was able to gather up all kinds of workers, such that guys that cut the grass made five times what the market said they were worth.
The VW workers make a fair wage and are treated well, so they don't feel they need a union. And they are right to resist paying hefty dues that are spent on political campaigns they have no say in and may not agree with. And the Republicans have every reason to exercise their constitutional right of free speech to speak out, since they are the target of the UAW political spending.
A skilled, hard working employee with a good attitude who contributes to his employer's success is worth his $55 an hour. But when the union says he can't make more than the lazy, absent slouch with a poisonous attitude, the union is wrong.
Truth is like poetry.
And most people fucking hate poetry.
