I agree that letting the market do its job would be the optimal solution, but this is unfortunately unrealistic. In most job markets there are information asymm

I agree that letting the market do its job would be the optimal solution, but this is unfortunately unrealistic. In most job markets there are information asymmetries so large that the market is effectively "nonfree" to begin with (free markets don't naturally emerge, you need at least some regulation for them to flourish). In a utopian future where workers can freely reject bad working conditions, I agree, they would be unnecessary. For the time being, they are a necessary evil. I once said half-jokingly that if they ever founded a union where membership is conditional on a whiteboard interview I'd join in a heartbeat. You need to keep out the politicized idiots who join a union not because of the union itself, but because they want to LARP as communists or whatever.