Unions - Necessary Evils or Just Evil

Michael Barone tackles this subject in the context of public service and private industry unions and concludes what anyone with an I.Q. of over 50 long ago figured out:  Unions are bad news for consumers, taxpayers, and the long term survival of corporations.  His example is Detroit where unions, with the help of some lame corporate management, managed to bankrupt two major car companies and left the third one limping along.  What unions do best, besides feathering the nest of the union leaders, is protect the jobs that already exist at any given company.  They do this by limiting the company's ability to innovate, eliminate wasteful jobs and create flexible, efficient workplaces.  A case can be made that unions many years ago did help introduce some safety measures in mining and manufacturing that improved working conditions, but that was long ago and probably of limited value in any case.  As for the public service unions there is no argument for these entities to exist.  They have destroyed the state governments in every blue state with their excessive pay and benefits.  They have dumbed down the education system in the US with excessive layers of useless administration, featherbedding rules and the like.  There is no excuse for these unions now, if there ever was, which I doubt.  Barone has it about right in his analysis.