There are good unions and there are bad unions. There are industries that need to have a unionized force to protect the workers and the public. And there are unions that serve no other purpose than to extort higher wages for their overpaid membership, even if that results in costs being passed on to the consumer. Can someone please explain why millionaire athletes in baseball, basketball, or other sports need unions?

Wal-Mart was planning to open a store in Queens, but pressure by union leaders and local politicians wrecked that deal. Now the giant retailer is looking into a friendlier outer borough: Staten Island, home of two Home Depots, a Lowes, a Kohl’s, and a Costco, with room for several more. Staten Island’s my home, too, and I say, enthusiastically: “Bring it on.”

The Web site of Teamsters Local 237 published comments by two union leaders on this issue. The New York City Central Labor Council’s president, Brian McLaughlin, said: “Wal-Mart’s low prices come with a very high price tag,” and the presence of the mega-store in Queens “will prove to be an economic disaster for our entire city.” Local 237’s own president, Carl Haynes, said: “Wal-Mart has a long-standing history of undermining the quality of life for working families in America by underpaying and denying benefits for its workers. We cannot allow this company to continue doing that.”

Give me a break. Not all New York workers are unionized and working for high wages and great benefits. It wasn’t that many years ago that I had to work at a job that paid $5 an hour without any benefits at all. I took what I could get until something better came along. A retailer like Wal-Mart offers employment for people my age, for young people needing entry-level positions, for unskilled laborers, and second jobs for workers who already have benefits and, of course, for immigrants.

Why is it that immigrants can come to this country, legally and illegally, and prosper, yet lower-income Americans who’ve been nursing at the government teat for generations never seem to break the bonds of what Star Parker, in her autobiography, calls “Uncle Sam’s Plantations”? There’s no secret to their success. They take any job they can, and pool their resources with family members. They do not seek to buy luxuries they won’t be able to afford until they have improved their living conditions.

Over the years I’ve watched my Albanian neighbors, who once barely spoke English, come home from their cleaning jobs at all hours of the night. The women take jobs that have no medical benefits, but the families are large and help one another out. Now they own farms in New Jersey and own and operate two pizza parlors and a roofing contracting business. They have achieved the American dream through hard work and a willingness to accept any menial job offered.

Retailers such as Wal-Mart offer jobs where teenagers can be trained in many positions, where they can develop the skills to get better jobs elsewhere. Right now, my daughter travels to Wal-Mart in New Jersey to take advantage of the bargains offered. If Wal-Mart settles here in Staten Island, her money and that of thousands of other New Yorkers will remain here to build a larger tax base.

When Home Depot opened its store at the Clifton area of Staten Island, it was predicted that the local hardware store would close, and it did. That store closed because the area’s property value rose and the owner took an offer he couldn’t refuse.

But small businesses can survive when a huge retailer moves in nearby, if they are well operated and offer a personal service not found in huge conglomerates. A good, thriving economy with low unemployment will benefit everybody.

It’s time to start evaluating which industries still need to be organized. Not every job is eternal – otherwise we’d probably still have a buggy-whip makers union.

A worthwhile union is one that represents employees who toil in nursing homes tending to our elderly, because those immigrant workers are frequently underpaid and exploited. Having been a caregiver, I’m of the opinion that you can’t pay these workers enough to do this heartbreaking job.

The teachers union, on the other hand, continually manages to extort higher wages and benefits from the city while failing to produce any noticeable gains in educating our children. It has also blocked school vouchers and tax credits for private schools by donating union funds to Democratic politicians who oppose those options that many minority communities endorse.

New York may be a union town, but it’s time to ask ourselves which unions do more harm than good for the city.