I think it is important to note that you are describing some unions, not all unions. Being locked into one caricature of what a union should look like is a huge driver of anti-union sentiment. People learn to think that this is the only version of a union that does or can exist, because anti-union messaging pounds these points over and over.

By every metric, unions provide massive, tangible benefits to most members. The question should be, how can we retain or enhance those benefits while also minimizing the well-known downsides?