Why have unions become so vilified in the modern day? How did public opinion shift to the current anti-union rhetoric we see today?

The meme of the "union break" has been around for quite awhile, and epitomizes the perception of unions as lazy, self serving, and inefficient. During the deindustrialization of the 1970s-80s there was a significant decline in union jobs and membership as large scale heavy industry jobs became obsolete due to increases in efficiency, and the outsourcing of jobs to factories using newer technology and a cheaper output in Japan, Germany, and later China and South Korea. The decline in jobs caused a decline in union political power and therefore a decline in political support. At the same time, other areas of the economy which were non-union; real estate, construction, retail, and investment, begin to surpass manufacturing as larger segments of the US economy, gaining new political support in the 1980s. In th 1980s and 1990s, unions were often portrayed by politicians and new enterprises as obstacles to making businesses more efficient, to bringing in new technology, and blamed union inefficiency, strikes, and union demands for high wages and benefits for the decline in manufacturing. Businesses often threatened closure if strikes caused them to lose business, but strikes in the 80s often became a last ditch effort by employees before their jobs were outsourced, which would then in turn be blamed on the strikers.

The epitome of the loss of status and political for the unions was when new president Ronald Reagan in 1981 followed through on his threat to fire all air traffic controllers from the PATCO union if they were to strike. As the nail in the coffin he also banned all 11,000+ striking workers from federal jobs for life (though this was eventually lifted in 1993). This was after PATCO had endorsed Reagan over Carter in the 1980 election. The defeat of the union was a milestone in labor history as one of the greatest labor defeats. It opened the door for unions to have more discretion in the hiring and firing of workers in the future.

But erstwhile in the 1980s, other areas of the economy were doing really great. Many Americans working in professional jobs and in growing sectors, people who own real estate, and investors were seeing the greatest economic and wealth expansion in their lifetimes as their money in the stock market and in banks was increasing exponentially due to the high interest rates of Reaganomics. The concurrently failing manufacturing sector caused this perception among the newer economic elite that there was something wrong with the unions who dominated the manufacturing industry. This is message was perpetuated in the media of the time in the go-go 1980s.