> If anything, unions should have been more corrupting of the government.

No. No. No. Unions should have continued fighting and wielding their previously enormous political influence. If the unions had pressured congressmen to vote down NAFTA/OAS/etc. then outsourcing never would have been an issue.

I wish we were back to the days that Walter Reuther led the UAW. He fought like Hell to have product pricing partially controlled by the union. Never came to fruition, but a worthy cause. Of course, he was killed in some mysterious plane crash.

Anti-union people love to bitch about how unions cause inflation, but they also inflate the wages of everyone else in the area. IIRC, right-to-work states generally have lower average household incomes (in the sub $100,000 range) than states with unions.