Tom,
Correct. Unions have many functions, but one of their most important is to provide some sort of baseline of pay/benefits for employment when there are fewer jobs than there are workers.
One of the great eye-openers of deregulation, back when it started, was the shock many airline pilots had when they found out the results of the political views they held being put into practice. It was quickly determined what the free market value for 727 or DC-9 pilots was...about 1/2 what the established airlines were paying. Plus new ideas like pay for your own uniform, your hotel during training, even your own type rating/engineer ticket. Many of these ideas have stuck and are now part of mainstream acceptance.
Much of what the legacy (those that are still in business) pilots have managed to hold onto has come by shifting the cost cuts to other employee groups.
Example: what once was a career job as an agent/ramper etc at any of the numerous smaller "outstations" are now done by contract labor, with the contracts rolled over every 5 years or so....so any agent can start all over again as a new hire.
Without some sort of pushback, either in the form of regulations/laws/unions, the free market left to itself will always lead to mass penury. (in case the reader feels the last sentence is some sort of leftist/socialist idea, it is a paraphrased plagarism from Adam Smith...and if you don't know who Adam Smith was, then I suspect all the above was gibberish anyway)