Megan is right. I do think of her "as a union basher." And her post, which I think is supposed to disprove that notion, just illuminates why. Megan says that concerns over seniority structure between two merging unions demonstrate "the problem with unions" and exhibit their tendency to introduce structural rigidities into the economy. Yet, weirdly, I've never seen her write a post saying a merger that was foiled or stillborn because the CEO didn't want to stop being the CEO demonstrates "the problem with CEOs." And lord knows I've never seen her write a post about a corporations misdeeds that said Enron, or whatever else, showed "the problem with corporations." Lots of institutions and economic actors, in the pursuit of their self-interest, commit sins, or introduce economic rigidities, or otherwise work in ways contrary to the public interest. If you're only keeping an eye on one of those groups and using their every misstep as evidence against the wisdom of their existence, then yes, you're a basher. And while I don't think Megan is against more distributional equality as such, the increased scrutiny -- none of it constructive, or encouraging -- that she gives the labor movement ends up placing her against one of the only forces in America fighting for better conditions and wages for workers. In general, I can understand being against specific union actions and tactics, just as I'm against specific corporate practices, but being anti-union as a matter of course seems incredibly strange.
