Absolutely. In American industries, unions are largely unchallenged authorities. A lot of times union members strike simply because they know they can get pretty much anything they demand. Also, as a result of their unreasonable demands, prices become higher and product quality worse because supply is decreased. And even if your state is a right-to-work state, it still feels these effects.

Many unions today are public sector unions, and nothing is more of a cluster fuck than the public sector.

Within the private sector, voluntary unions are perfect. In Florida there is the "right to work" law, which says that those of the labor force do not have to be forced into contributing to a union. However, the problem with this law is that it also says that employees that don't contribute to unions must also receive the same benefits of union-employer negotiations. This is an issue where the union is actually harmed by legislation instead of helped or ignored.

Ideally, anyone who wishes to be a part of their union can just contribute their own money voluntarily. There would be no ability for unions to automatically pull a percentage of an employee's paycheck into their own funding, as is the current case in California. And the other benefit would be that all negotiations between unions and employers would be completely voluntary and have no legal guidelines.

Now, when it comes to public sector unions, we have the issue of mandatory collective bargaining. This pretty much requires employers to make all decisions with the presence of Union officials. While this works in businesses that do it voluntarily, the public sector has spawned one of the worse special interest groups in this country, the teacher's union. Public sector teachers are unaccountable for their skills, or lack of skills. Firing rate of public sector teachers is less than 1%. Not because all of the teachers are just so damn good, but because it's nearly impossible to fire a teacher, even if they are illiterate. Often times a teacher who is physically inappropriate with a student (pre-legal issues, let's say shoving or slapping or something minor like that) will be moved to another school in order to avoid fallout (lol, take a chapter from the Catholic Bible.)

Private sector firing rates is almost 10 percent, depending on the state of course. Now, two ways to look at this.

1. Anyone who becomes a teacher should be noted as a social hero. There is little to no excuse to fire 10% of the teacher work force.

2. Teachers are human beings like anyone else. And like human beings, a lot of them are going to be less than average in their contribution to their consumers (students.) They should be fired if their work is not efficient.

Reminds me a bit of how we look at the troops. Unless a guy murders his family and then shoots himself, we assume that those who serve in the military are heroes and should receive all the gratitude and resources we can give them. People are in favor of raising teachers' salaries and benefits. They believe that poor test scores is the fault of not giving enough money, not the teachers. Somehow, teachers will do a better job if they are paid more... never has this ever been the case of any business. Employees do better work when they are properly trained and given a goal or motivation (the chance for higher pay or a promotion.) Accountability is the key.

One saving grace would be how irresponsible Federal involvement in education is clashing with the interests of teachers' unions, since teachers' unions vary by state. Federal requirements to receive funding will sometimes piss off teachers because the Feds require results... and teachers often times can't produce these results. For good reason, the Federal requirements can be retarded (better Standardized math and reading scores, or Abstinence only education,) but the people who run schools care more about money than the education of their children, so they adopt these programs and curriculum in order to receive Federal money, which anger the unions whom many don't agree with these programs (especially the ones that restrict the increase in their paycheck.)

But aren't we oh so lucky to have bureaucracy eat itself to death?