Quote

I think it is just stupid economics for a government to approach economic management from a strand of thinking regarding unions as enemies.

What's going on in this country? Unions stand against those trends. We've got to somehow insulate the robust American economy from this global economy that seems to want to devour our standard of living.

People have to be reminded that unions played a very historic role in our economy.

My problem with unions is they breed mediocrity.

This is the crux of the problem: because the Republicans and the right wing have been successful in almost eliminating unions, everyone else has suffered as a result.

Unions go hand-in-hand with a strong middle class.

If I were the president of the United States, I would make unions illegal. They no longer serve a functional purpose in democracy, in my view.

Unions inherently create an 'us versus them' dynamic that makes winning against a company's management the top goal, not serving customers, innovating, or in the case of education, teaching kids.

The unions still have a job to do, representing their members' interests to governments and parliaments. And I think collective agreements still have a role, alongside markets and laws.

There has been a huge attack against private sector unions. Actually, that's been going on since the Second World War.