I had a son, house payments, and all the responsibilities of supporting a family before I was old enough to drink. I always had two or three jobs. I graduated from machine design school and worked for the 3M company. I made $1.90 an hour. Machine designers in 1964 were a dime a dozen. I changed from machines to HVAC design, which paid a little better.
While doing HVAC design, I discovered the pipe trades and became a union apprentice pipefitter. The work back then was very physical. It was like the wheel had yet to be invented. We carried everything. We used a hammer to drill and set anchors in the concrete. 
What was so different about this union job was that all the journeymen WERE interested in my well-being. The work was hard, but they were there to help, encourage, and train.
Even as an apprentice, my wages soon passed what I was making as a designer. I also had good health insurance for me and my family, dental insurance, and two funded pension plans. As I went from job to job, my benefits followed me, even when I worked out of state. 
Everything was great until Ronald Reagan was elected and we got a conservative Supreme Court. The court gave corporations the rights of citizens, and us workers became commodities. I am not a “commodity.”
Between Ronald Reagan, the Supreme Court, the Business Roundtable, the conservative think tanks, and the entire Republican Party, unions were destroyed en masse (along with the middle class).
Before Reagan, the working class had a much higher percentage of the wealth and income in America than it does today. Reagan and the GOP instituted Reaganomics with tax cuts for the wealthy, trickle-down economics (that never trickled down to the working class), and the myth of “a rising tide raises all boats” — which was all a great lie. 
Unions like the Lake Charles Pipefitters in Louisiana had 2,600 members laid off in one day by the refineries and chemical plants. No union member was allowed back into the plant.  My union in St. Paul was lucky. We were small enough to stay under the radar, and since most of our work is outside in the cold, replacement workers are difficult to find. We were with the very few left.
I am now 81, still a member enjoying my pensions, and the Twin City Pipe Trades still covers two thirds of my Medicare supplement. 
Unions do one thing: take money out of the pockets of the owners, investors, and stockholders and put it into the pockets of the workers. This is why the Republicans hate unions. Things are going to get much worse for the working class. “They” have the workers fighting each other like rats over a smaller and smaller piece of cheese. “They” are blaming the decline of the working class on everyone except those who are actually responsible.
The United States has the most productive workers in the world. We can build widgets, but we have no real economist working for us. We are fed lies. All our information comes through corporations. Whether it’s liberal or conservative media, they both have the same financial goal, and the working class is not part of it. 
Richard Willits
Member, Economic Fairness & Affordability Group - Ely Indivisible
Ely