But as Bastiat would say, you have to look at the seen and the unseen. So the question to ask here is at whose expense? And the more you dig deeper, you will see that these unions, and union members, benefit at the expense of the really poor, the less educated and less experienced, since they both now A. have less work to choose from and B. Their wages are driven down by the unions overarching power.

And this is without even bringing into the picture what unions do to their companies, and the effects they have on losing employers. For example, take the airline industry, the auto industry, and the supermarket industry, three industries that probably represent more union members than all other private industries, and what is a common theme behind all of these industries? They are all having serious financial troubles, the airline industry, for example, might go bankrupt. The automotive industry is losing customers to Japanese automakers time and time again. And of course you remember the recent long strike the supermarkets had…In other words, while unions may be good in a very very limited context, in the usual day to day activities, they do more harm than good, especially to the poorest members of society.

I explained this all in greater detail here.