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comment by kleinbl00
kleinbl00  ·  3949 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: What President Obama didn't say about the economy

Speaking as a dues-paying, picket-walking union member:

Unions exist because worker protections don't. They grow cancerous because the ecosystem of capitalism is bounded by fascism on one side and feudalism on the other. Any worker-run workers' organization will necessarily emulate that which it exists to defeat if it is subject to the same incentives.

Unions are no longer powerful in France and Sweden because the governments there instituted most of the protections unions provided. The problems associated with unions have not gone away, but the money goes into the state's coffers, at least.