Public approval for organized labor stands at a remarkable 71 percent, according to Gallup—its highest level since 1957. Even a 52 percent majority of Republicans approve of labor unions. This November 3, Vermont will likely pass a ballot initiative enshrining in the state constitution the right to join a union, effectively barring legislative passage of a “right-to-work” law (i.e., a law freeing workers from paying nonmember fees to unions that negotiate on their behalf). This follows the 2022 passage of a similar measure in Illinois. The GOP-controlled House of Representatives passed a couple of pro-labor measures earlier this year, inducing a panicky conservative counterattack that attempted to redefine labor rights as a stalking horse for sex-change operations. Nobody, it seems, dares attack labor unions the old-fashioned way, as an insupportable financial burden on capital.
Well, almost nobody. The Washington Post opinion section, which in February 2025 announced that henceforth it would advocate single-mindedly “personal liberties and free markets,” has spent much of this calendar year denouncing labor unions.
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But during the first 10 months of 2026, The Washington Post has published no fewer than 11 unsigned editorials on the subject, all of them anti-labor. If Bezos hasn’t prevailed on the Post editorial board to climb onto his union-busting bandwagon—and I’m not inclined to take him at his word—maybe that’s because the Post editorial board has witnessed two opinion editors and at least half a dozen editorial writers depart since Bezos laid down the law on “personal liberties and free markets.” Perhaps those 11 union-bashing editorials merely reflect an astute observation of what the guy who writes the checks wishes his newspaper to say.
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