At the same time you do have large institutions, e.g. the US government, where unions played a rather different part than you imagined.
For example, everybody in America can call or write their own Congressman ~ right?
Actually, not ~ at least not for most of American history. If you were an employee of the US government you were not privileged to write, call or contact your congressman, or senator, and neither was your wife or kids.
Some of the first 'associations' to grow up among industrial workers after the Civil War were the ones that went on to become government unions ~ their purpose was simple ~ pick out a guy, he quits the agency, he's your go-to guy who can talk to a senator or representative without fear of imprisonment, or, in fact, being beaten to death by republican or democrat party thugs.
The postal unions earned the right to speak to their elected representatives in Congress by agreeing to destroy Communist union organizers who were infiltrating the US government during the Great Depression.
They destroyed these pukes the old fashioned way and FDR wrote an Executive Order that allowed government employees to write letters to their members of Congress.
So many say that freedom is not free ~ and so it's not ~ not even the freedom you've already earned. You have to keep at it.
As far as smarts go, you know very well that your typical shopkeeper or 1 percenter (coupon clipper) just doesn't know anything at all about productive working life.
At least a business owner (your “shopkeeper”) produces jobs and contributes to the GDP. You and your union buddies at the Post Office don’t do jack except suck billions from the taxpayers, year after year.
You, as a professional leech, have no clue how your host organism works, and I’m nt sure you really care.