Your use of seniority seems like a straw man to distract from the fact that unions have faced an unprecedented corporate and political offensive in the last 40 years that has no desire to compromise and is only intent on destroying any fragment of organised labour. To blame senior union officials for the decline of the unions is to miss the point entirely. Yes they were a contributing factor, but certainly not the main cause.
Not a strawman at all...teachers unions are all about seniority over effectiveness and will fight tooth and nail accordingly. Many other unions are similar. I agree to the policy of public bargaining, but individual members should be subjected to measurements of their effectiveness. Tenure based on the sake of time (only) should not have equal weight to merit within the union structure. I say this as a product of public education and having many wonderful teachers, but saw younger ones forced out where older were tenured in and safe but not effective. I can't speak to other unions which I did not experience.
The unions helped build the middle class in this country. The apprentice/journeyman/master levels within the trades is a great measure of skill and advancement, but regardless of trade (metal working, teaching, programming, etc) your tenure should be one component of your measure, but not the sole measure. Do you continue to learn? Do you teach? Are you advancing the best interests of the group? There is more than "oh, I've been here longer than you".
This is what I mean when I talk greed and seniority.
Yes, unions have faced an offensive, but their insular nature has also harmed them just as much as the outside offensives.
