re: Who here is in a union? Do you feel it helps or hurts?

It is not in any company’s or manager’s best interest to terminate a good employee.

The reason you see bad Union employees retain their jobs is the arbitration process. It is very expensive and time consuming for the company. No matter how well the company prepares or how justified they were in terminating the employee, the outcome depends upon the arbitrator, who most often wants to split the baby so he doesn’t get a reputation of being pro or anti union.