Unions do NOT care about the collective whole. They care about keeping the wages & benefits up there. The will sacrifice a few to keep their puff wages and benefits. If you are in a union you are expendable.
Unions always brag about the “on-average” value of negotiated deals.
My mother works in a mixed union/non-union Wisconsin school. She is locked out of the union - gets 8.00/hr for doing the same job as the union people right next to here at 25/hr with vacations and benefits. She gets no healthcare and only a 2% match on pension. The union people doing the same job get full ride healthcare and 13% contribution to pension.
The fallacy of Wisconsin public workers’ unions is that they stand up for workers. At best its a clique and a racket. They don’t give a rip about the greater good, even within their own offices - it’s me, me, me all the way - screw everyone else and screw the taxpayers.
They don”t really care about wages. What they do care about is collecting DUES from every one of their members, and if the wages do increase their dues go up.
Only to the point, as in this instance where the union would rather sacrifice jobs than compromise on benefits, that it does not conflict with what any union sees as its primary responsibility: The preservation of the union.