Over the years I've worked at two companies that were highly trade-unionised. The first was a manufacturing company where we'd see workers in a particular department down tools seemingly as often as they could... say, if temperatures fluctuated too far from acceptable levels, they'd walk out and sit in the canteen drinking tea until things had normalised. Their 'time out' adversely impacted everyone on the other production lines who needed the parts the strikers should have been handling, to be able to meet their own assembly targets, but I doubt they thought about that. I recall a collective groan going around our offices as we discovered that this militant department was 'out' yet again and the extra work it would involve to get everything running smoothly once more. The second was as a trainee journalist at a large publishing company, where the 'closed shop' arrangement meant that everyone had to take time out to attend regular union meetings whether we wanted to or not and however much pressure we might be under with publishing deadlines at the time. As you might imagine I felt that union membership wasn't a great thing for employers to contend with - or for those of us who wanted to work - but this negative feeling has changed a little over the years as I've seen some of the positives union membership can bring to both sides.