Popular media usually portrays union members as very blue collar. Think of a bunch of oil rig workers, steel workers, or auto workers punching our doors and fenders. Membership in labor unions in this country peaked in the 1950's and is now at best about 9% of the total work force. But there are white collar unions. You used to only see them for school teachers and for many state and federal office employees. My Mom was a school teacher and a whole host of local politicians made their bones berating the local teachers union and accusing them of all kinds of imaginary misdeeds.An after effect of the Covid-19 pandemic that's gotten a lot of press is the "Great Resignation" and there's been a large number of what I think are bad takes about it. The worst accuse employees of being lazy, using Covid relief money instead of working, and other hot takes. As the pandemic wanes we now see the growth of unions in unlikely places like Amazon warehouses, Starbucks coffee houses and in newspaper newsrooms and magazine offices.What's my hot, possibly unskilled take? Some jobs were pretty terrible and during the pandemic, at least pre-vaccine time, people realized that maybe they could go and do something else. I also think too many of the early layoffs were unnecessarily harsh, and when the companies tried to hire their former employees back, the employees said, "No thanks, I'm doing other stuff now and I really don't miss you."Why do I think this is a good thing? For two reasons: 1. I don't think unions are the corrupt featherbedding, cigar chomping criminals of old. 2. There's more consolidation these days in the publishing world. So, if you're going to go to work for massive, consolidated magazine publishing giant, why not have a whole room full of people behind you when you go to sign your contract or negotiate a pay raise?As a former youth soccer coach, I can tell you that a level playing field is a very good thing.