How did national trades union affect workers?

Answer 1

Unions provide workers with collective bargaining power. The alternative is to cross ones fingers and hope that companies and corporations will be nice, play fair, and give raises when the cost of living goes up because "it's the right thing to do". I think anyone who's been an employee knows the likelihood of that happening.

Sometimes unions do go too far when they shutdown essential services too long. But thanks to unions, most of us enjoy a 40 hour week (the norm before unions was 50 to 70 hours). As unions shrink so too does the benefits employers "give" to their workers. To find a job with a pension and health benefits is difficult and the unions are being slowly driven out of existence by corporations and government. Neither one of the above has any interest at all in having workers that have the power to strike, or to engage in collective bargaining. The interest of the people who are already rich and/or powerful (gov/corps) interest is in funnelling more money into the pockets of the CEO's and stock holders and out of the hands of workers. Anti-union stories in the media, which corporations and the government control, are all about convincing the average (non union) American worker that unions are bad, destructive and evil and so they use resentment to turn the average person against the unions also. By and large, it is working, which is unfortunate because most of what the media says about unions is patently FALSE. So as the American unions go, so does the American worker.