At the end of the day these arguments always come down to people thinking they're superior than the peasants who "need unions", possibly because they can't imagine organizations where people work for the welfare of people other than themselves.
First, I don't think there are 'peasants who "need unions"'.
Second, there are people who might want a union to negotiate for them. Just like there are people who prefer having a lawyer represent them in court. Having such preferences (or not) doesn't make anyone superior or inferior. But it also doesn't mean that we should all have the same preferences.
> [...], possibly because they can't imagine organizations where people work for the welfare of people other than themselves.
Eh, lots of organisation, including companies or political parties or charities, do that kind of stuff all the time. Doesn't mean that I want that I automatically want to hire the services of any such organisation.
Eg I'm fairly sure that most churches are run by basically altruistic people who only have my salvation in mind. Understanding that doesn't make me into a Christian.
What if labor rights and regulations provided nearly all the same benefits as unions but across the board to everyone, union member or not? Union membership could still be something you could choose to do, but the better working conditions be legislated so everyone in the country, no matter what job, had fair working conditions?
I’m someone who is not necessarily pro-union but understand that working conditions could be improved. A great example is 40 hour work weeks. I have never been in a union but because there are laws regulating a standard work week and mandating overtime if you go over, I have benefited from that. We could all collectively as a country lobby for this instead of each individual workplace fighting the same battle one thousand times over.
Not every anti-union argument is based on the one you are postulating.
