My father was a union man till the day he died. He served as the president of his local union for several years, then worked as the business agent. His job was to get jobs for the members and he was good at it. If he could get 5 guys hired on a job that only needed 3, so much the better for his members. Where some people saw featherbedding, he saw people getting jobs.

Everyone has the right to act in their own best interest. If someone has the ability to command a high salary, be it because of being the best at what they do or through some other legal mechanism, more power to them. As the old joke goes, "I upped my income, up yours."

Unions served a big function in the past, perhaps not nearly so important today. Unions distort market forces but ultimately, they're not immune to them. If they get completely out of hand, other alternatives spring up. For example, one automaker in California has chartered a 747 to fly 100 tons of critical parts from Japan. That's twice as expensive as surface shipping but much cheaper than closing a factory. Other alternatives, such as shipping to Canadian and/or Mexican ports then trucking the goods from there are also possible.

If the unions succeed in driving up the cost of shipping too high, then other alternatives become more cost effective. It's like what happened in this one small town back in the 1950s or 1960s. Hollywood used to love to film westerns there because of the beautiful scenary. The local people organized as extras and drove up the cost of filming there to the point where Hollywood went elsewhere. For the same reason (high labor costs), an increasing number of films are being shot in Canada and other countries instead of in California. The unions are pricing themselves out of the market.