Not only do minimum wage laws lead to higher unemployment, but the extent to which they do so depends on the extent of union activity in the economic system. The more the unions close off employment opportunities, the greater is the number of workers forced to seek employment elsewhere, and thus the greater in the downward pressure on wage rates elsewhere.
They also deny many people the opportunity of acquiring work experience, knowledge, and skills they might have acquired by means of working. The least-skilled, most-disadvantaged members of society will be less able to compete. Thus, they tend to exert a lifelong depressing effect on people. It both stops them from working and prevents them from becoming qualified for anything better than the kind of low-skilled jobs to which a minimum-wage law tends to apply. Many blacks will be condemned to a life of poverty and parasitism on the welfare rolls.
I think union boses want fewer members so they can control the pension funds without those pesky members.