Honestly I think the problem is that unions are also acting as guilds.

Which is to say, as a union, they make deals with companies and the government and fight for regulations requiring union labor, but then they turn around and act as a guild by restricting who can join and get trained and become union labor, keeping wages high with an artificial labor shortage.

So you end up with a situation where you're only allowed to hire union elevator technicians, but also there aren't any union elevator technicians. They get high wages and all the work they want, and everyone else gets broken elevators.