Not necessarily. They protect exploitation of the some of the workers, but often bring about abuse and host of other problems.
Once they have established their power, they do anything they can to impose their law on other workers and collect money from both the owners, and the other employees.
And to be considered part of the group, you have to pay an annual membership to them in order to get “protected”.
And honestly I’d argue this fairly liberal approach encourages entrepreneurship because you have so many safety nets
Unions typically offer collectively bargained felt insurance and such here as well
https://alfakassan.se/en/when-you-receive-benefits/
You can go through an union, because they managed to take over parts of the government system that distributes the subsidies, but you are just adding one intermediary to whom you pay a fee and encouraging that (which can be a good thing too, in case they are actively supportive and more efficient; someone local may know better).
Though, what I originally wanted to express, is that in some companies, if you are not member of a specific union, then you do not get access to promotions, to the most interesting jobs, or even getting the risk to getting fired because you suddenly do mistakes and be replaced with someone more union-friendly, etc.
This is the type of protection I meant. Protecting you from their own harm.
For example, my work environment in France was so toxic that over time I developed psychological problems, because the institution could not address the abuse, harassment, bullying, etc, since everyone had secure permanent contracts protected by unions.
Even of I look at the most problematic union conduct I can recall of the top of my head it is absolutely dwarfed by any potential abuse coming from corporations which unarguably is many magnitudes more problematic. And this includes armed rebellions against company armies.
It is a bit like pointing to a few cases were ambulances produced traffic accidents and demand that they can't be trusted for that reason. Maybe it's my physics interest, but if this was a formula I would say we can ignore the union downsides because they are insignificant.
Unions over all have shown to be helping raise the standards for even those who are not in them and there is enough sociological research to back that conclusively. Systemically, if corporations would share their success with their employees instead of trying to maximize the extracted value. So the flavour of unions you will get has to do with the society you are in.
In an era where corporate sends Pinkerton thugs to beat up people unions will jive very differently than in a social democratic nation in Scandinavia in the 2020s. Heck, I would even say that in the rugged-individualism-embarassed-billionaire-land that the US is, unions would take on a different shape than in any neighbouring country just based on cultural differences. So a bit more nuance and a look at things at scale is certainly needed.
If the doctor tells you that you need antibiotics to survive your infection, do you dwell on all the possible side effects, or do you just want to not die?
If this is not just being pendantic, it seems to imply that having no unions are better than having unions. Is that actually what you want to argue here? If not, what are you trying to contribute?