And, I feel it should be said, that unless you are in a union-hostile environment you can generally in a similar way pick up a toolbelt, walk into a few union halls and ask for steady skilled work with good pay and benefits and they'll explain the path to get there with them which, at a good union, will be transparent and fair - one of the main potential benefits of trade unions is democratizing the trade skills qualification process.
Unfortunately I don't really see much of a difference between that and the behavior of many incorporated business units in construction.
It's a moldy part of the piece of bread that prospective workers have to eat around, whether they go union or non-union, until we can get rid of it completely. But we're making progress fast in a ground-up sort of way.
Also - a good union is often a successful foil to a bad business, but rarely the other way around. I think the best foil to a bad union would be strong regulation and enforcement of the platonic idea of the union, like in Germany. Unfortunately that particular solution would probably be DOA in USA.
