>I'll just say I don't think unions or the concept of a union needs to be perfect to generally have a positive effect. Maybe I'm naive.

I can understand that.

Personally I've had experiences with two unions in different industries.

Each time the unions were IMO more of a hindrance to me than anything else. They were for me just another layer of bureaucracy with no more interest in me than a poor employer.

Worse yet they laid down policies that were so general that they were serious problems. Lots of protections for long time union members who simply didn't want to learn new things, etc.

Having said that, I would be interested in some "trade union" type things that maybe do things less traditionally compared to typical unions in the US.