[randomdata]

> It's like, a fundamental misunderstanding of how power dynamics work

The misunderstanding is yours. Workers understand what you say just fine, but don't care about out-negotiating the company. They will never meet the CEO at the bar, so it means nothing to them. They want to be able to out-negotiate their neighbour so they can peacock dominance over someone they actually interact with.

The purpose of a union is to establish a brotherhood between metaphorical neighbours so that they don't try to be assholes towards each other. While that does, indeed, improve the overall worker position against the company, it hinders the power dynamic between them. And that's where you find the pushback.

It's much like you find in 'middle-class' neighbourhoods where you see households trying to outdo each either with nicer yards, or fancier BMWs, or whatever, all while racking up crazy debt to pay for it all. If they invested the money they pour into that stuff instead they would be way better off, but being better off isn't the motivation.