Trump’s choice of Oregon’s U.S. Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer as labor secretary got me thinking about organized Labor. The prospective Secretary voted for the highly favorable organized Labor PRO Act. This wide-ranging labor law would rein in the so-called gig economy and boost workers’ organizing rights. Along with Donald Trump inviting the Teamster union’s president to speak at the Republican convention, you have a picture of a party looking to wear the “union label.”

This turn of events made me wonder if unions are a force for good or politized entities that do more harm than good. I grew up in organized Labor’s heyday, the 1940s and ’50s, when 1 in 3 belonged. Unions enjoyed their highest favorability. One not so happy with organized Labor was my father, a part owner in a Chicago manufacturing company; he had to deal with wage demands, work rules, and strikes in his industry and those in the supply chain.

A successful furniture company listed on the American Stock Exchange was in an industry that had it with unions and moving to “right-to-work” states. My father felt the company should follow and head south, but his partners refused. Fearing the worst, he sold out his shares and comfortably retired. A decade later, the company was bankrupt. It could not compete against lower labor costs and looser work rules that allowed automation.

The migration from the unionized north had already been underway long before China opened up, so they’re not to blame. Once the class of the world, our most heavily unionized industries lost out. We used to think of U.S. steel and General Motors the way we think of Apple and Microsoft today. The government baled out G.M. and U.S. Steel for sale, maybe to a Japanese company.

The question becomes, what highly unionized industry is thriving? While the present administration claims to be “the most pro-union ever,” private-sector union membership has fallen for decades. Since Franklin Delano Roosevelt, unions and Democrats have had a symbiotic relationship. The party advanced union membership and unions supported the party electorally. Republicans provided the resistance, culminating in the Taft-Hartly Act, which, among other things, allowed for Right to Work States by banning mandatory union membership in those realms.

Samuel Compers, the longtime president of the American Federation of Labor (AFL), warned against Labor collaborating with the government. The union, comprised of skilled workers, sought to negotiate fair wages and conditions for its experienced members. He saw no need for government intervention and thought it dangerous.

We have massive government involvement in labor and unionized government workers—even F.D.R. thought unionized government workers were a bad idea. A governing party dependent on union votes and campaign funds will have difficulty refusing the union demands; he felt it was dangerous.

One has only to look at my old hometown, Chicago, to see how toxic a government dominated by organized Labor can be. The most prominent supporters of the Democratic leadership of the city are the teacher’s unions. The present mayor is a former teacher’s union organizer. As a result, the union members enjoy high wages and excellent benefits. What the citizens of Chicago have are sky-high taxes and awful schools.

During the COVID-19 epidemic, the union refused to return to their schools for in-person teaching, even after we knew children were at little risk and most Red State schools had reopened. Given the poor quality of Chicago schools, recovering from this loss may be impossible.

Where will an expanded combination of Big government and Big Labor lead? A good place to look is at the legacy of Peronista Argentina. A bloated government supported by massive labor unions relied on tariff protections and extensive regulations to deliver to unions and other favored entities.

The result is that a nation once one of the richest in the world now has close to a fifty percent poverty rate and runaway inflation. The people were so fed up with the conditions that they turned to a libertarian economist to bring change. The new president, Javier Milei, has slashed taxes, cut regulations, fired government employees, and dumped whole departments. So far, the inflation rate has significantly fallen, and the budget is amazingly balanced.

Just as Ronald Reagan’s first two years had a painful recession, the changes have caused pain, especially for the government workers let go, resulting in large demonstrations. Who are the major participants? If you guessed union members, you’re right. Freeing the economy up to competition will cause unions to be under the same pressures that lost members in the U.S.

Will Mieli succeed? Juan Peron, a Mussolini admirer, installed a combination of big government, big labor, and favored business, which is so pervasive throughout the country that the new president is pictured with a chainsaw in his attempts at reform. The one thing in his favor is young, fed-up Argentines with a poor outlook for their future who widely support change. Even so, getting the nation back to reality will be challenging.

Why talk about Argentina when the problems are right here at home? It’s cautionary to see what happens to others who adopt specific policies that fail to deliver the promised results. You should change course if someone ahead of you drives off a cliff.

The second Trump administration promises to shrink government and cut stifling regulations to free the economy to achieve its full potential. These are laudable goals, but maintaining or extending union power while protecting specific industries from the resulting harm undermines these efforts. Anyone overlooking the ill effects of big Labor may be disappointed.