In answer to your query about why people join and follow unions. In 1967 and 68 when I was in college I worked summers as a laborer in NYC for Local 731 Int’l Laborers and Hod carriers. I was paid $4.75/hr. A good wage and better than most college kids got back then. If you go to inflation calculator you will find that $4.75 then is $33.22 today, but members of 731 make $41.29 plus $26 in benefits/hr. Given that construction has weather related down times the laborer still can make $75K-$85K per year plus benefits. And the laborer is at the bottom of the construction wage scale in NYC. Carpenters, electricians, wire lathers, ironworkers make more. The non union guys are making $25-$30/hr with very minimal bennies in the area. That’s why people join and stay in unions. Oh and back in 67 I worked my tail off for those 9 weeks and the guys I know who are 731 laborers today still do. One final thought. In May 1970 I and 100K other hardhats marched in support of President Nixon and the troops in Viet Nam in the hardhat parade. No one complained about us being union members then.
Alternatively, wage and benefit levels that outpace the market can eventually destroy entire industries such as what occurred in Detroit, where the UAW savaged the American auto industry. American Big Steel also fell to the wrath of the unions and other forces like govt regulation and price controls.
One day you’re making a tidy $40 per hour and the next day your job is long gone, being done abroad for pennies on the dollar.
Which was a point I made too, but differently.
Group negotiation power is like any neutral power. It can be used for good or for ill.
If used without the fear of God (i.e. the desire to please Him for His own sake) it will be used for ill in this sinful world. I don’t have any perfect worldly answer but I have a Guide Whom when worshiped will maneuver our imperfect worldly answers into a plan that converges upon heaven. It would be hard to resist the temptation to be fair to an unfair party, but that’s what God wants.