It's not just propaganda. Many of us come from union backgrounds--either our parents, siblings, etc were blue collar workers or teachers or police. We've heard lots of stories of unions creating all kinds of nonsense inefficiencies and then when someone is being targeted by management, the union does little or nothing to protect them. My best friend taught in a low income school district, he was forced out because he wouldn't pass the basketball team when they wouldn't take tests or turn in homework; the union wouldn't protect him. My dad has a dozen such stories because he worked in factories since he left the family farm.

This doesn't mean unions can't work or that things would be better without them or that we shouldn't trend toward more unionization; it only means that there are real problems with unions and it's hard to trust pro-union people when they won't even acknowledge as much.

For me, I hear Europeans raving about their unions, so clearly unions can work, but if the pro-union side intends to get more political support, it needs to articulate what it is about American unions that aren't working very well and how they intend to address those issues. Chalking it up to "propaganda" comes off as patronizing and naive at best.