Aight. I'm gonna wade on into this one.
I'm in much the same position as jackdanson...
I've been working for the same company for 11 years. We've been through three different unions since then. The first was the local transit union. We were lumped together with the bus drivers and light rail operators. Even though we have a pretty good sized workforce locally, we were small potatoes compared to the bus/train operators. Thus, we invariably got the short end of the stick from the union. Plus, most of my coworkers are conservative, and the union *REALLY* didn't like the fact that we wouldn't march in lockstep with them on politics.
We booted the teamsters out when a national all-EMS union was formed. Unfortunately, the guy who founded it turned out to be an absolute crook and charlatan, and royally hosed us.
We're now part of the Teamsters local. Again, we're a small fish in a big pond, but at least the Teamsters seem to actually listen to us. We've got pretty good representation from them, and for the most part they recognize the value in letting the company get rid of the dead wood. It takes a little more time, and a little more paperwork, but they realize that in EMS you just can't have the "do the least amount of work possible" types around.
Now, I'm not one to sing the praises of the unions in general. As a general rule, I think most unions have outlived their usefulness, including the one we belong to. However, I will say that with Oregon being a "we can fire you for whatever the heck we want" kind of state, I *am* glad that the union is there to put in a checks and balances mechanism for the company. I guess one example of that would be when I had been at the company for about a year, still in the transfer division, shuttling old folks back and forth from their appointments. Was driving a wheelchair van, and had parallel parked on a very busy, narrow road in NW Portland (for those that live in the area, NW 23rd ave near Lovejoy). Was pulling out of the parking spot, and find myself face to face with a transit bus that was crowding into my lane about 1/4 of the way in. I could either cut sharp back to the right and risk scraping the side of the car in the spot in front of me, or get creamed by the bus. I chose to scrape the car in front of me. Didn't do hardly any damage, little bit of paint transfer and a cracked tail light. But if it weren't for the union, the company WOULD have fired me. Instead, the union fought for me, pointing out that there were witnesses that stated the bus was in my lane, and had I not cut sharp to the right, I'd have been hit head on by the bus. (At the time, management's position was that ANY accident, regardless of who was at fault, was a terminable offense.)
But to take us back to the OP, that union boss was an absolute asshat.
