[patmorgan23]

I totally get your perspective given your experience. There are unions with bad leadership, but think those generally come about by a disengage union membership. As a member you and your coworkers ARE the union and have the power to affect what it does and who its leadership is.

Several unions have gone through democratic reforms in the last few years to make their leadership directly elected and accountable to the rank and file members. The Teamsters and UAW being to examples, and it turned them from weak company unions into powerful advocates for their members.

Unions are groups of people, just like all other organizations.