This is all true bert, but what unions were and what theyhave since become are two different beasts. I think that in Britain, the late sixties and the early seventies epitomised what unions had become, the worst of what they are came out to the chagrin of the true reformers, often hobbling new social initiatives and turning the public against them, enabling right wing anti-unionists to say "see, see...they are out to destroy the country"when in fact all they were trying to do was line their own pockets ( they being the agitators). Of course this isn't restricted to unions, a lot of these "lefty'councillors were also out to do the same thinks, anybody in the UK Remember the Liverpool debacle some years ago (magnificently depicted in Alan Bleasedales GBH). I just live by the very cynical rule "Beware of reformers with straight teeth and new suits".