The union worldview and reality

Some SF hotels are still in thrall to a year long union strike. I've never been a union fan, going back to the days when my father was a member of the teachers' union. It was patently clear to me, even as a child, that the union was minimally concerned about teacher's wages (which were abysmal), and destructively and obsessively concerned with getting involved in classroom curriculum. It was the union that vigorously backed bilingual education, a program aimed at keeping immigrant children immured in the barrio forever, since those children never did get a chance to learn the language of money and power -- English. Regarding the hotel strike, I have only an anecdote to offer. One of my neighbors is a good Democrat. During a conversation that mentioned the hotel strike, she surprised me tremendously by saying that she did not support the strikers. Why? Well, it turned out to be the personal touch. One of the parents she met during her daughter's soccer game manages the kitchen at a major SF hotel. He's delighted with the strike. With the union workers on strike, he gets to hire non-union employees, who work harder and better than the union employees -- in part because they know that they can actually get fired for doing bad work. When last she spoke to him (a year ago, at the strike's beginning), he was dreading the strike's end, when his kitchen would once again be flooded by union workers.