Well when you make a request to these people, average waiting time is apparently between half an hour to a few days. This would seem to suggest that their is enough demand to require specialists that do this sort of work exclusively, although that is irrelevant. If people are required to do this task in addition to other tasks, then reducing their workload would mean you could cut staff.
As for these unions, people objected to the industrial revolution for the same reason...
Unions are very touchy about cutting back staff, since less staff means less union dues..
If you ask me, Unions have out-lived their usefulness.
What they fought for when they were initially started, a minimum wage and proper compensation for all workers by private companies, has now been ensured by the government through minimum wage laws. Private industry and its need for good workers naturally takes care of the proper compensation part, because companies are more than willing to properly pay someone who is good at what they do (whatever it is).
All that unions are doing now is driving up the cost of goods and services everywhere by forcing companies to pay more for employee wages, above and beyond what the average market rate is.
Take GM for example. Regardless of what decisions they made in regards to product line, features offered, price options, etc etc.. they could simply not compete against foreign car makers and other American car companies through virtue of the need to counter their increased employee costs through a more expensive product (car).
This is the reason why the government had to "bail out" GM, and now, along with the Ontario Government, and the same union who "represents" the employees, are now the owners of the company.
There's also this nice story where the SEIU (Service Employees International Union) "pressured" the state government to pass a law that requires parents who provide their special needs children with home-care (ie: by themselves, on their own dime) to pay union dues.
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/forced-unionization-seiu-collects-union-dues-from-disabled-kids-medicaid-checks/Google "SEIU forces parents to join union" for more information!
And all those shenanigans going on over in Wisconsin because Scott Walker decided to fight the unions.
And the government also has a union?! Thats a pure load of bollocks simply because government workers are paid for by the taxpayers themselves.