[skynet-9000]

> better benefits and better pay

You are only considering one side of the question -- and actually a limited form of that one side (namely, the material benefits/pay for the unionized employees).

What about the productivity of the firm and workers? The profits? The cohesiveness of the market strategy? The sense that the workers were participating in the success of the firm itself (and not the success of the union)? The creation of healthy relationships between management and labor?

It's probably beyond dispute that unions introduce a "middleman" between management and labor, but we are probably arguing about whether or not that middleman is (most often) a good or bad thing. (I do not dispute that sometimes unions can be healthy and might align its incentives with company success, but I tend to believe that this middleman is not usually a good thing except in extremely unhealthy companies -- perhaps like Amazon, and I must confess that in working with about 50 companies, of which less than 10 were union shops, I've never actually seen a union shop where labor didn't put union goals over company goals, to the detriment of both.)