You make some very good points, and I can understand your father's frustration. However, there is another side to the coin.
Where I work, the Union and company agreed upon a two-tier wage system a few years back: lower pay scales for new employees, up to $4.00 less maximum pay than employees who were already on board.
The new, young, gung-ho employees soon came to resent the older, top-wage earning people who didn't want to do the heavy lifting (literally) because of bad backs, bad knees, etc. (They call it being "retired in place").
The end result was that the young people with any incentive and ambition voted with their feet, lured away by other companies who weren't unionized. This left the old, worn-out employees making top dollar, just marking time until retirement, and young, marginally-talented resentful people that no one else wanted to hire.
I will agree with you. There are younger people today that understand the values of hard work just as there are older union workers out there that exploit their employment because they are union protected. I feel there are some principles of organized labor that are necessary (safe working conditions, reasonable working hours, etc). What I am against is the socialist principles that many unions still represent. The biggest of these: making everyone equal. I believe that attitude AND aptitude should determine altitude. I know that sounds a bit cliche-esque, but its the truth. Unions were good when we were in the industrial revolution, but not today. I truly believe that today's unions need their wings clipped.