American workers are treated worse then any other first world country worker. We work longer hours, have less time off and generally work in more dangerous conditions. Many of us work weekends and on vacations - and our employers EXPECT us to! A 40 day week? What a joke THAT is!
Unions try to keep the playing field level. Are they perfect? No, but they do make a difference. My father in law worked 30 years for Ford in Mahwah, NJ. He worked hard for Ford (assigned almost a dozen engine patents to them) and when they closed that plant he would have received almost NOTHING had the union not negotiated a settlement for him and the others affected. Thanks to them, he got to keep the small condo they owned and his wife has a modest pension and decent health insurance in her old age.
The union that represented your father is NOT the union of today. I come from a long line of auto workers; one worked for Pontiac, the other for Fisher Body (GM). My father-in-law retired from Chrysler and I worked contract for GM. One of the things that shocked me in the late 80's was when my maternal grandfather, a long-time union man, confessed that the behavior of the UAW was "making him vote Republican."
Union dues are being diverted to support causes and politicians that have ideas completely contrary to union members. They've deviated a long way from representing worker safety and improving performance; my husband was conscripted into the UAW for many years even though he worked as a social worker in Detroit.
Performance doesn't really matter, it's all seniority. He just taught a class in Detroit and is continuously appalled at the total lack of professionalism (let alone literacy) of long-term state human services employees who cannot or will not be fired because it's too expensive to fight the unions.
We are also one of the only first world countries with a very large and cheap illegal alien labor pool. That' s what driving labor costs down. Tradional blue collar jobs like construction, automechanic, cooks and even cable contractors are staffed almost exclusivly by immigrants, most working on the cheap. I am not anti immigrant, but I have to admit , they are taking a toll on the blue collar work force.