> Any union that does not represent its members to the best of its ability is not a good union.

This is as naive as saying that "any good country does not represent it's population" and then therefore expecting good governments.

> That's also why it's vital that no single union has a monopoly on a certain type of work; if union members are unhappy with their union, they need to be able to leave and join or start a new one.

Again, the reality on the ground is one of union monopolies. Union power derives from its collective bargaining power - so separate unions always end up merging and union bosses always end up as major power brokers, accountable to no one.

Of course there are bad governments. They deserve to be overthrown. Similarly, bad unions should be overthrown. But just like good governments, good unions are possible.

Many countries have healthy unions. The problem in the US is not the concept of unions, it's the American concept of unions. It's how the US goes about dealing with unions. That's the thing that needs to change. Claiming that all unions are bad when that is clearly not the case, is a nonsense argument.

>Again, the reality on the ground is one of union monopolies. Union power derives from its collective bargaining power - so separate unions always end up merging and union bosses always end up as major power brokers, accountable to no one.

This is the case for many corporations, leading to corporate mergers too, accountable to no one. That's why we have mechanisms to deal with it. Some mergers must be approved by the government. Sometimes companies are split up. We just need to apply the same regulations around anticompetitive behavior and monopolies to unions, so that we can have unions while keeping them from being all encompassing.

>Any union that does not represent its members to the best of its ability is not a good union.

I absolutely agree, but there are unions and unions. The SDA in Australia for instance is, for some members, useless, and for other members actually harmful - but it has been effective at winning better conditions for some workers. (SDA isn't the best example because RAFFWU, which is another union founded by workers and organisers who believe that SDA has failed workers, does a better job everywhere it goes.) A good union is better than a bad union, and a bad union is often but not always better than no union.

I also agree that unionised workers need to be able to effectively organise, which might involve starting a new union. That being said, union turf wars can devastate actual efforts to better conditions because of issues that could be resolved without splitting the union. The best reason to pack up shop and set up a new union is because the union doesn't have an effective means to, or a culture of, internal democracy, which means problems with the way the union is run can't be addressed. But if a union does have this, it's better to 'work within the system.'