[jlsch1]

My mother's family was 100% union at one time and some were local leaders back in the 60's and 70's. They use to train the trades, provide benefits, and it was a good bang for the buck to the worker Union member (brother or sister) and the company.

I have been union and non union and went to both training schools when younger.
At one time I could weld looking into a small mirror trying to weld in a boiler where it was a tight fit to get into.
I did learn that both in a union and non union boilermaker school.
Training was going down in the union schools in early 90's while the non union schools were getting better.
Yes, I remember when I was called a scab, rat worker, etc by the same people who could not even fit in a boiler to repair them.
Union lost what made it strong from faith in the membership to trusting the rank file due to past issues of stealing people's retirements.

In late 70's and 80's they got greedy and instead of concentrating on improving training and keeping up with the times they let what made them competitive go down the toilet.

Some locations the leaders stole the members money and retirement.
Barbers Union had that done to them and a few other unions.

Some companies organized and started organizations such as ABC which is similar to the union as far as training goes.

Let's see now people have other options to find a group that not organized, competitive to market, and just as well trained.

Not hard to see the businesses wanting to go non-union.

Today the Union just a group you pay membership to and nothing to make a union worker stand out or be a value to the business owner.