"a damning correlation between greater union power and increased youth unemployment"?

From a European perspective I tell you: such utter white america bullsshit. Economy can be driven in many ways and strong unions is spelled a longer time perspective away from the halleluja of here and now that is the cliche idea of happiness in the todays stolen world thats unfortunatelly an increasingly embarrassing less than 500 years old offspring from Europe. 

Unions in Europe are comparably strong and it has little to do with communism as unions were here before communism. Economy can be short sighted or economy can be managed with a big portion of future analysis.

Try it some time.