- In a review of Joseph McCartin's 2011 book, Collision Course: Ronald Reagan, The Air Traffic Controllers, and the Strike that Changed America in Review 31, Richard Sharpe stated that Reagan was "laying down a marker" for his presidency: "The strikers were often working-class men and women who had achieved suburban middle class lives as air traffic controllers without having gone to college. Many were veterans of the US armed forces where they had learned their skills; their union had backed Reagan in his election campaign. Nevertheless, Reagan refused to back down. Several strikers were jailed; the union was fined and eventually made bankrupt. Only about 800 got their jobs back when Clinton lifted the ban on rehiring those who had striked. Many of the strikers were forced into poverty as a result of being blacklisted for [U.S. government] employment."
True up to the point where organized crime or racketeering intercedes. Teacher's unions are perpetually fucked but the Teamsters generally get what they want. In my industry, nobody gives the first fuck about the Writer's Guild (protip: if you're in a "guild" you are a thing of the past) but fuck with the camera union and you'll never work again. My union president was venal, corrupt and incompetent. But he lasted fifteen years before crossing a more venal and corrupt (but more competent) union - the Louisiana local.
The Amalgamated Transit Union in Las Vegas struck in the late 90's or early 2000's. But the union drivers were so rude to passengers and so inefficient that, when Citizens Area Transit hired replacement drivers who turned out to be much kinder and better at their jobs, the public response compelled CAT to just hire the replacements full time and tell ATU 587 to stick it. No one really cried over that one, which is something given Vegas is a pretty big Union town. The replacements did eventually join the ATU in some capacity and things have been fine since. But it's a prime example of a union vastly overestimating their leverage and the other side finding them very easily replaceable... to the point of the replacement being an upgrade.