@nixCraft My grandfather was head of HR at Armco Steel. His philosophy was that "Unions exist because HR failed". So he convinced the company to set up community colleges for workers kids, low interest mortgages, basic healthcare, etc... And while steel mills everywhere had strikes and union busters, his company (for his tenure at least) didn't ever have a strike and he never needed a union buster.

however.... he was clear that a union exists for a reason. It doesn't happen magically, people have to be unhappy and mistreated. So, he wasn't really anti-union, but more "It's cheaper not to fuck people".

Unfortunately, you know how they say the "most efficient form of government is a benevolent dictatorship", when that dictator goes, you end up with an asshole and everything goes to shit.

I'm not sure what happened a after he left the job (heart attack), but now they're a union shop, and by his own logic, it's 100% the fault of a shitty HR department.