I wonder if said unions decided to give people a chance to support if they wanted. I'd be very happy with unions if they did that, in fact, I could even maybe support unions as a 'good' influence instead of a 'bad' one if they'd agree to voluntary participation of their members.
That's not the way a Union works. Despite the English spelling, there is no "I" in Union. There is a "We". Take that away and suddenly the whole Union no longer works.
Imagine a workplace where 8 people supposedly have the same job. 4 of them are members of a Union, and have rules about what they can/can't do. The other 4 are not bound by those rules. How efficiently do you think that dep as recent is going to work? Not very well, as I see it.
I don't particularly have anything against unions per say, but I get really irked with them because of the /abuse/ I see from them all the damn time.
The oil unions up here in Alaska constantly protect people who are lazy ***** and nearly kill our drillers - because of union bullshit these assholes end up on desk jobs and are a total drain on the "system" because they can't be fired for "mistakes" -- it's not fair to the other workers who do their jobs and it's not fair to the companies either - no matter how you look at it.
Then there's the ******* teachers union up here - holy **** I hate them. We love our teachers, have a /huge/ school district (I think it's one of the largest in the nation simply for what it covers as a means of efficiency) and they just rape people left and right up here. A /lot/ of angst - including fighting Alaskan's desire for vouchers so we can put our kids in schools based on performance, a 'movement' that is almost /directly/ caused by the unions keeping on shitty teachers.
There's also the case of like my kids, they refuse to join the unions, yet the unions somehow finagled a deal where they /still/ have to ******* pay dues even though they're not protected. - that's wrong.
You're operating under the assumption that everyone will bail and unions will have no power - but that's a knee-jerk reaction if you ask me. Like yourself, you'll continue to be in the union despite this EO yea? And you'll have the benefits of the union as well (higher pay, better benefits, and legal protections that non-union members won't have.) Those are worth something. What it will stop is the flagrant abuse by unions who are no longer trying to compromise with businesses, or are no longer working for their members, but rather just ... basically extorting everyone simply because they have the power to do so.
I think it'll be okay in the long run honestly, yes there is going to be a slump at the beginning, I suspect a lot of folks are going to bail, but I also think a lot of folks will come back after a little breather so long as unions actually offer a true value for the dollars in dues. It puts some pressure on the unions to perform well in looking out for folks, while maintaining the integrity of unions (PR and real) Which is why I could see the Union's agreeing to/supporting it. ~shrug~ We'll see what happens.