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> Any company that can take advantage of workers will do it, no need for "dominant/ monopolistic".

What a nonsense thing to say. This is not an opinion most people, and certainly not most economists, would agree with. It's a foundational pillar of regulated free markets.

Moreover in this instance, construction companies are not some sprawling international megacorps, they're locally oowned and operated.

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A pillar of free-market models, sure. But economics is built on a stack of spherical-cow assumptions that don’t really hold up in the real world.

Of course an employee theoretically has total freedom to leave an abusive employer and go somewhere else. But do they have time to search for jobs while working full-time? What if their employer makes them work mandatory overtime? If they don’t have time to search while working, can they afford to be unemployed for a few months? What if their employer threatens them or discourages other employers in the area from hiring them?

It would be great if competition made unions unnecessary, but it doesn’t.

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