And then there's Germany, wealthy, prosperous, doing much better than the US.... and unionized
Interpreters have unions in the US Accountants don't produce anything, they mostly just lie
http://www.webcpa.com/news/Jailed-Russian-Oil-Execs-Point-Finger-at-PwC-55522-1.html
As for your assertion about growth prior to unions - the desire to unionize was contemporaneous with the industrial production techniques that encouraged workers to unionize. You'd have to be either
a) blind
b) dumb
c) a rigid ideologue
to somehow think that workers didn't wish to unionize prior