> Denying people agency and power in their negotiation by claiming they are "not as good as someone else" is antithetical to the struggle of labor - work deserves to be compensated fairly.
Isn't that kind of the point? If you're good at your job and the company knows it, you could threaten to take a job somewhere else if they don't give you a raise. When there is a union, you can't do that, and the leadership uses your negotiating power to demand the things they want, which there is no guarantee has any overlap with what you want. Unions frequently demand things like seniority rules or retirement benefits (because the most senior people and those closest to retirement control the union), and compromise your interests for theirs if you're a new hire.
> Your union blocked this because your employer was trying to break your unions negotiating power by separating your interests from the collective workforce.
The trouble is that your interests are separate from the collective workforce. The company is selling its products for as much as it can. If it's in a competitive industry then its profit margins are thin and most of its revenue is already going to suppliers and employees. For someone else to get a bigger piece, yours has to get smaller. That's the consequence of your own logic:
> If you don't want to protect your coworkers by negotiating with them, then you must be interested in exploiting them by negotiating against them. Labor is a zero sum game.
If the union leadership doesn't want you to get the opportunity then they must be interested in exploiting you by negotiating against you.