More troubling, Unifor is also the union which represents print and broadcast journalists. In an election year, the Liberal party has announced it is giving a taxpayer funded bailout to media companies, and has put a representative from Unifor on the board to decide how those funds are doled out. And as mentioned above, the union is openly supporting and funding the Liberals' campaign. To their credit, many journalists have protested, pointing out that this is a conflict of interest and looks really bad, even if they could remain unbiased with the Liberals forking over big bucks to them. Their protests, like those of any other union member who finds this cozy political relationship troubling, have gone unheeded. Of course, the media has been overwhelmingly left leaning for years, but this just goes to reaffirm peoples' belief that they will get no news without narrative from the mainstream media.
So, as I said, in my opinion unions had a valid purpose when they were representing workers' interests such as securing workplace safety, child labour laws, etc. But they have far exceeded their mandate, and in many cases are corrupt and do not represent the interests of their own members who nevertheless are milked for union dues. Happy Labour Day.