• If you are dedicated to the proposition that not all workers are created equal...
• That some workers, because they pay an extra $35 a week out of their paycheck are somehow better workers...
• That every union worker is better qualified and does better work than any non-union worker.

then I suppose they are.

But "Union Shop" laws fly against the American dislike of monopoly - if you want to work in some fields, you are required to belong to a union. I know, because I used to be in a business that requires union membership if you want to work in any of the major cities - broadcasting.

One of the great ironies of that business is that every one of the major conservative Talk Show hosts belongs to the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists. If you want to open a mike and talk using any of the major network facilities in New York, Chicago, or Los Angeles you have to belong, pay the dues, and contribute to the pension fund. Fact of life.

One reason Rush Limbaugh built his own studio in Florida, a right to work state, is that he can do his show with about half the production staff that the same effort would require in New York. He still needs 4 people, a call screener, an engineer, a producer, and a transcriptionist.

But in New York, he'd also need a director, and a general assistant producer, and probably another engineer. Those 3 people can add up to $100,000 in direct costs, plus all the higher taxes for 3 hours a day.

But I digress.

Unions claim that through their apprenticeship and jouneyman training programs, they provide better trained workers than those trained on the job or in trade schools. All you have to do is somehow join the union which usually means someone in the union recommends you. It leads to a lot of father and son careers, in itself not too bad, but what about some kid off the streets who doesn't have a union member father or uncle. (Yes they do have some programs, but they still don't let enough "outsiders" in.)

In any case, if the Labor Unions still had value, there wouldn't be a problem with right to work, and everyone would be clamoring to require Union membership for every job. But you don't need to join a union to get training to pick up trash at a work site or to clean pots in a restaurant.

The dirty secret is that Unions now exist to keep existing jobs exactly as they were when that job was created, and to keep that person in that existing job forever. If you want to add responsibilities, a union tends to want to create another unique job, even if that job only requires a couple of hours a week.

Unions used to fight for safer working conditions. Now they let the governmental alphabet soup agencies do that for them, They used to lead the fight for better wages, and the end of employer abuses towards employees. Now they seem to only serve as a way to collect money to funnel to political favorites regardless of the belief of their members because good employers know that you pay people more to do good work.

The National Chamber of Commerce is again beating their drum for spending more money to fix the "infrastructure."

OK, I'll go along, but let non-union contractors bid on the work, and don't require them to pay those mythical "equivalent wages." Let the Unions put in a bid to do the work for the contractors, but let the contractors hire the best and lowest price workers regardless of union affiliation.

Then watch the economy take off, as new people enter the workforce and the employer force. Paying for more "infrastructure" under the present system is just lining the pockets of the politicians who have Union obligations. Don't they remember the last "stimulus" program?