I hope you are right there :) It take me far more effort than I feel it should, but hopefully the flow I am used to will return in time.

Unions have been kind of like the teachers who solve schoolyard arguments, so the kids don't learn the skills for themselves. I don't want a union to negotiate my wage based on the lowest denominator employee, I want to negotiate it from where I stand. What many people don't realize is that they are actually missing out because as you rightly say, they protect the employer these days and because they negotiate for the worst employee, the average salary can be lower than if each had a variable scale, meaning that the employer pays less in total. It is more complex than this, but you get what I mean here.