I don't hate labor unions, at least not in theory, and things like this are the reason why. I remember a guy I used to work for who absolutely hated labor unions, and we kind of agreed to disagree on the issue. Later I found out that our company and several competitors in town were in effect bargaining collectively against the employees of all the firms, as they had agreed not to solicit or consider for employment anyone employed by any of the other firms. I had no particular problem with this, but I had a BIG problem with this guy doing this while wailing about the evils of organized labor. For him it was a crime for the mice to bargain collectively with the cat, but the cats needed to band together to counter the influence of individual mice. What a Dasch-hole.