In an era where real wages aren't really increasing much and the rich are getting richer, it seems economically just for unions to protect workers from laws that would open jobs to labor force competition and market wages.
However, this economic environment has highlighted how anti-worker unions can really be.
The only natural habitat for a union in today's global economy in the U.S. seems to be the public sector. Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker recently took away the power of collective bargaining, partly because costly benefit packages were handed out to unions by politicians who would not be around when the cost of these benefits was fully realized.
Plump pensions and Cadillac health-care plans for public sector unions mean that private-sector workers are unfairly taxed to provide extra benefits to their public counterparts. This crowds out non-governmental job growth, which is where long-term job creation must come from to be sustainable.
In the private sector, labor organizers are outraged at the drastic move against unions. Yet only 6.9 percent of private workers are in unions, compared to 36.2 percent of their public counterparts.
Recently, Boeing was sued by the National Labor Relations Board because the company tried to move factories from the heavily unionized state of Washington to South Carolina, a right-to-work state.
In this economic environment, unions aren't protecting their workers against evil corporations. Instead, they are protecting them from the droves of unemployed citizens looking for work.
Boeing has no moral obligation to keep jobs in the U.S. If the government tries to restrict Boeing's flow of capital, Boeing can just as easily take the jobs to China. In a global economy, a state that allows powerful private-sector unions will lose jobs and experience slow economic growth.
Perhaps there are legitimate aims for unions to pursue other than collective bargaining power.
One particular example would be if a teacher were accused of misconduct by a student - claims which often prove to be unfounded - a union could provide the teacher with a lawyer to argue on his or her behalf.
But unions often do more harm than good.
Consider this hypothetical example: Let's say the cleaning staff at UF successfully formed a union. The union successfully presses its case for higher wages and better benefits, along with firing restrictions that increase job security.
Let's assume that before this union, UF wanted to hire 1,000 workers, but after the union is formed, UF can only afford to hire 500 workers.
For the 500 people who would have had a job, these new regulations on the cleaning staff at UF hurt them more than the new benefits help those who were hired. Those who advocate for strong collective bargaining power must realize that their efforts help some workers at the expense of others.
There were many expressions of solidarity on Facebook for the striking Verizon Wireless workers a few weeks ago when the employees walked off the job. These workers filed for unemployment benefits because they weren't being paid during the strike. They were taking advantage of a New York law that said striking workers may collect unemployment checks.
In other words, taxpayers financed these workers' efforts at getting a bigger paycheck when thousands of workers would have been glad to step in the place of the incensed Verizon labor force.
In a country with a 9-percent unemployment rate and millions of families hurting in this stalled recovery, this example serves as a reminder that unions are not necessarily the friend of all working people everywhere.
Rather, they are the friend of those lucky enough to still be a part of one. Cutting collective bargaining rights is a step in the right direction and will help create jobs in an economy that sorely needs them.
Travis Hornsby is a statistics and economics senior at UF. His column appears on Mondays.
