[AnthonyMouse]

> Unions are often after things that benefit both sides. Safety improvements both protect the workers and shield the company from both injury liability and material losses due to accidents. More generous leave policies and more worker-friendly hours result in happier, healthier, better rested, and therefore more productive workers, which can easily balance out the small reduction in total hours.

In cases where this is actually true, the company would be offering these things of its own volition -- as happens in many industries without unions. So then what would you need the union for?

You could obviously have poorly managed companies that get this wrong, but then they would be at a competitive disadvantage in the market.

Where this more often doesn't happen is in the places where it isn't true. There are some jobs where worker productivity isn't that salient -- or is only relevant to the extent that it allows the company to employ fewer people, which is the sort of thing a union would then try to prevent.