I can agree with your point. Government perhaps is smarter and better equipped to deal with these types of issues than it was in the past when unions were necessary. The follow up question to this is: how did Government become smarter about labor issues? Was it unions that brought these issues to mainstream attention? If we do away unions, who could adequately fill this role? Unions are special because they have direct access to information that is generally lost to anyone outside of the company's walls. Any entity that filled the role of watchdog would need access to this information.