I don't think it's productive or wise to speculate on decisions that restrict the free association of people. Outside of narrow circumstances, an employer should not be legally required to employ someone any more than an employee should be legally required to work at the company.

Why is it so easy for you to disregard any kind of power/leverage relationship about labour and employment? Reality isn't that simple nor that reductionist.

It's easier to not care about anything if you decide your only principle is "the free association of people". It's one of the easiest ways to do whatever you want in your life and not give a damn about the impact it has on others without having to feel any guilt or cognitive dissonance.

Nothing wrong with free association of people though. Unionization is also an example of free association: people coming together to maximize leverage and minimize power imbalances.

There's nothing wrong with the principle itself. I'm obviously not a fan of slavery etc. Just when people narrow in on it and act like it's the only priority/thing worth talking about. I was trying to criticize the myopic focus on that.

Then I agree with you. Rational employees should not want to associate with unreliable employers. This ought to drive up the prices corporations are forced to pay. It should cost them actual money to disregard people like this. If employees feel pressured to associate with them despite their behavior, then it is not free association at all, it is forced association and its causes must be identified and remedied. Usually it's a lack of leverage leading to worse negotiating positions.

Yeah, what bugs me is this reduction into a model to then derive all their worldview of reality, it's backwards. Like the spherical cow, free association is a pretty fucking good model and principle but when applied to reality you really ought to add the details to the model to make it realistic and actually work when applied into reality.

Free association in labour is not possible when there's so much leverage from one of the sides of the negotiation. In a perfect idealised model, labour will increase in price due to people not accepting jobs they would, ideally, not think it's worth it, companies will then raise salaries, market equilibrium! In reality people are mothers, fathers, or just basically anyone who needs something to eat, and for food they'll accept any trade to keep some part of their dignity.

A fucking spherical cow-ish principle doesn't take into account human dignity into their pricing models... And so these people work backwards by adapting that if it's not accounted for it's irrelevant, rather than the opposite reality that we experience.

Or maybe you don't know how I feel and I can come to different conclusions that aren't a result of me "not giving a damn" about people. Not everyone who disagrees with you is evil.

Why is it so easy for you to disregard any kind of power/leverage relationship about labour and employment?

I'm not disregarding it, I just think it's not represented accurately.

Not trying to be rhetorical, why/how is it not represented accurately?