I almost stopped reading your post after your first point of blaming everything on one political party. I did stop reading your post because you think most attorneys in America belong to the republican party.Most likely because they live in this world called reality, and that place has an economic climate that was destroyed back in the early 2000's by a certain political party, and continues today, by that same political party who are the equivalent of spoiled children... (Actually, over 90% of them are attorney's who've never owned a business in their life acting like free market experts, you know, like certain people in this thread.)
To answer your question, because pensions are involved, and an uncertain job market, and thirdly, because they aren't going to let the monsters step on them. And, again, there's a reason why they exist, because American workers have had a long history of being abused, much like the outsourced workers are today. A sweat shop in India is the picture those mean old horrible unions want to try to prevent. Ridiculous!
Unions can be improved, and need to be, but they won't be by a bunch of free market, 1% wannabes and pretenders.
But it is cute seeing all the "expertise" on this board and free market supporters basically saying growth and growing your product is a useless prospect and won't work when it was the very thing that a certain mustached man did almost a century ago, and who these same people worship. It's cute, please, continue...
FYI, Tim... Calling America an "entitlement mentality"... Yeah, the rest of the civilized world who have REAL entitlements just laughed at you.
I can't take anything seriously after that. Sorry.