Payne is right. Over time, Union officials come to think of themselves as counterparts of management. To have effect, they must be the ones who make proposals to management, that the grass roots don’t matter. They exercise power the members just provide “input.”
And the union has an incentive to screw individual members. Given a situation where a company says it must either lower union benefits or go bust, the smart thing to do would be to preserve jobs by lowering benefits. But the union doesn't want to look "weak" in its negotiations with other companies, so it says no, the company goes under, and all of the union members at that company lose their jobs.