I think the film isn't an attack on unionism as such but on the inevitable abuses that come with power.
Unions were and still are critical for the protection of workers' rights. It amazes me how most conservatives, who so loudly protest their devotion to the individual, have been doing so much to prevent an individual from joining or organizing a union. In most of the industrial world today management clearly has the upper hand.
Yet in their heyday many unions grew beyond their original missions and became corrupt, hide-bound power centers led by men who made millions while screwing their members. Like any other organization, unions could and did fall prey to the corruptions of power, which ultimately led to the anti-union revolts of the 1980s in the US, UK and elsewhere, which have neutered if not decimated union power.
To take Britain as an example, the coal miners union was way out of control by the late 70s. Thatcher ruthlessly "tamed" them, and the union and its leader Arthur Scargill had it coming for their hypocrisy, dishonesty and corrupt practices. But the pendulum swung so far the other way that many honest working people were left with no meaningful union help at all. (Of course, the workers had only themselves to blame by elevating such disreputable people to power and blindly sticking with them under the delusion that they were working in the average man's interests.) This sort of thing has been the norm in many countries since.
In the US in the late 30s and throughout the 40s, Communists did control a number of unions, including the electrical workers, furriers, longshoremen and several others. Of course few rank-and-file members were Communists but the pro-Red organizers would engage in tactics designed to silence or out-last regular members so that they could get pro-Communist policies adopted at union meetings or agree to other actions ordered by the CPUSA and, indirectly, Moscow. (Many people don't like to admit that the US Communist Party, like others, was essentially a tool of the Soviet party and took orders from it, but the evidence is all there.) It was liberal anti-Communist people who eventually succeeded in throwing these people out of power -- maybe the only benefit of the Red Scare of the period.
In the 1940s Walter Reuther and his brothers had a years-long fight with the Communists attempting to seize control of the United Automobile Workers. Reuther was shot in his home and nearly killed by Communist union leaders, and at least one other of his brothers was also attacked. But ultimately he prevailed and became a model of what a union leader should be -- liberal, fair, honest, fearsomely against mob rule, corruption, racism and other problems. The UAW became a leader in the fight for civil rights, anti-war sentiment and other progressive issues while remaining open, just and un-demagogic. In 1968 the UAW was the leading union attacking the racist presidential candidacy of George Wallace, and Reuther's standing with his members was such that a few pro-Wallace union people refused efforts by the Wallace campaign to have them solicit UAW members' support for the Alabama demagogue. One such UAW man said, "Sure, I could get my local to endorse Wallace, but I won't, because that would be slapping Walter Reuther in the face." Such was the loyalty Reuther held even among members who didn't agree with his politics. Business leaders found Reuther honest and reasonable but he never betrayed his members. Reuther's death in a plane crash in 1971 was a huge blow not only to the UAW but to the cause of honest, effective unionism.
If only all union men -- and business and political leaders -- had more of Walter Reuther's personal qualities of honesty, courage and dedication to the betterment of all.
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