[dragonwriter]

> An interesting thing about labor disputes like this is they're presented as quasi-political stories, where people eagerly argue "for" or "against" the union or corp as though they were political parties or philosophical camps or something.

That's because they are political.

> But as with most economics, it doesn't really matter what you think is fair, or who has the best justification. These are simply economic forces testing each other, and whichever is strongest will prevail.

That's not different than other political issues (“politics” and “economics” are different lenses for viewing the same disputes over the distribution of social power) and “strength” here is absolutely inclusive of political strength in the narrow sense, since government has a substantial potential role in both the immediate resolution of the dispute and in setting the playing field on which the repeated series of disputes takes place.