No. The role of the unions is to protect the collective group of members. That's different from protecting individual members whenever possible. If a teacher's

No. The role of the unions is to protect the collective group of members. That's different from protecting individual members whenever possible. If a teacher's union protects bad teachers who aren't teaching kids, or a police union protects racist, violent cops, that undermines those groups collectively, and especially undermines the good members of those groups. The role of unions ought to be to push for higher wages, better benefits, and fair treatment. They should help address when something unjust to one of their members happens. When unions act to protect bad apples, it undermines their ability to do that, not to mention the standing of their professions as a whole. To give another analogy, if you have a large family, with a fourth-cousin fifth-removed who gets drunk and beats everyone else's kids with a wooden bat, you protect your family by removing that member from family events, not by standing up for her rights to be there, even though she's a member of your family too.