I've softened my tone regarding unions after having friends and family deal with different stuff with their jobs, and as far as I can tell they're a "necessary evil" but not for the reason you might think.

The reason they join the unions isn't for collective bargaining, it's for legal protection, because in the good ol' US of A there's a lot of deadbeat parents who send their kids off to school and then proceed to watch daytime TV where every other commercial is either an ambulance chasing lawyer or some other form of "I called 'Mr. Fight-for-me lawyer' and got the $250,000 I really deserve"

After seeing what the (public) school systems can put the teachers through it makes me wonder why anyone would want to be an education major...