Thats because you are looking at the businesses that survive, not the ones that die off. 8/10 businesses fail in 5~10 year range. The fact that you havent seen

Thats because you are looking at the businesses that survive, not the ones that die off. 8/10 businesses fail in 5~10 year range. The fact that you havent seen people stressed out for their business running into the ground is entirely due to not talking to people that have businesses that can be run into the ground. > Regarding your other point, unions can also increase salaries by getting workers a larger piece of the pie. Not sure why you left out this obvious aspect of any negotiation? Because that is a labor theory of value proposition. The pie does not work that way: the moment a businesses loses its competitive returns due to higher demands, it will stop investing capital unto itself and remain stagnant, while the capital goes to areas where it does not have such restrictions. Companies compete with each other fiercely, and a company that has workers that cant unionize will very much welcome such problems on their competitors!