1% of your earnings every year is typically quite a bit more than a legal consultation 1-2x/decade. Unions can provide other things of course, but joining a union in order to avoid paying for a lawyer feels like buying a house to avoid renting a hotel room for a week. (Unions also make it less likely that reviewing terms in your contract that you find objectionable/unworkable would be fruitful. They may make it less necessary, but when it's necessary it often becomes pointless.)
What kind of shitty ass union are you paying 1% of your earnings every year? Here in Denmark I am paying less that $50 a month, where I save more on insurance each month than I pay in union dues, as well as the union dues being tax deductible.
I'm not in a union (neither is one available nor would I prefer one), but it seems like 1-1.25% is fairly typical here in the US.