[observationist]

It's awesome when unions serve the function intended. It's not awesome when there's mandatory contracts, 5 men standing around while a 6th holds a bucket, a 7th a shovel, an 8th a painbrush, while the 9th is driving a steamroller, etc. and they use cheap, inappropriate "repairs" that degrade on a predictable rolling 2 year basis. Noble institutions can be as corruptible as governments and private businesses and so forth, all it takes is one person willing to bend, a little, and poof, there's a tidy little predictable sinecure for a decade, with one or more middleman doing the subcontracting out to a union shop, or w/e. Peoples' capacity for grift and graft is endless.