<< When the civil rights, anti-war, women's, and environmental movements came
along, these same unions mostly opposed them. >>
This is factually untrue. The unions bankrolled the civil rights movements and the early anti-war movement--certaintly the UAW paid for SDS for quitea while, maybe up through '67. They fought a lot of the important legal battles for things like affirmative action and disparate impact theory in discrimination law. The unions, after getting slammed with some discrimination lawsuits, then also moved to protect their (new) women members both in contract negotiations and in the courts. They were important players in the Clean Air Act and other imporatnt environmental legislation. Sure, a lot of unioins are run by fat, cigar smoking, reactionary, bigoted crooks, but if you think that the union movement in this country reduces to Jackie Presser, you need some self-education.
--jks (a sometime UAW hack)