As I see it. Unions can be blamed for at least two of the main problems in Western Countries:

1) Foreign Workers - Domestic workers have become overly spoiled over the years and unwilling to do most of the hard work (mainly construction and farming) unless they are paid more than can be afforded - and it is always easy to find a foreign worker who will work for much less. In Israel, for instance, there are about 300,000 or more legal and illegal foreign workers (with about 180,000 unemployed people) out of a working force that consists of about 2,000,000 people. Which means about 15% of all the workers are foreign. That's an absurd!

2) Factories moving to 3rd world countries - I can't blame only the unions here, mainly because the taxes in Israel are very very high (most of the people pay around 40-50% income tax), but since the peace with Jordan, many factories have moved just a few miles across the border for a much cheaper labor force (and less taxes).

So who's to blame in all this mess? I guess the govt. and the Unions are both at fault, but I can hardly blame the rich people for moving to other countries (and even to the US, just for some perspective on how awful things are around here) to advance their business.