I work in a union shop and looking at our seniority list is the most disheartening experience. Hundreds of us are going to be indefinitely laid off in the next two months, and when I look at the top of the seniority list I see dates in the 1980s and early 1990s, with a handful in the 1970s.
These people have had a great wage and paid for benefits for longer than I have been alive and refuse to retire.
The system only works if the door continues to revolve, allowing new young people to come in, make a good wage, and move up like these people with 35+ years seniority did. If they failed to buy a home or create a savings in those several decades that's on them, it's not the burden of the next generation to bear.
Not to mention all of these people I have included receive a pension on retirement, something not available to anyone hired in the last 25 years.
Union members are meant to be brothers and sisters, to stand with one another. The selfishness displayed only works to make me resent those hired in around the time I was born, and it will surely sway how I vote on future benefits for retirees.