> A company having a monopoly in the regular market doesn't really matter for employment: if you're terrible to your employees, it's not your customers you have to fear, it's the employees. They will leave and no new ones will join and you won't be doing any business if you don't have any employees to actually do the work you'll get paid for.
Depends on the situation I suppose. If there's only one bakery corporation in your country and you're a baker, you can either work there, learn a new job or leave the country. It's a bit orthogonal for sure, but competition for talent is vital for good conditions for workers. Plus, a monopoly doesn't have to provide a good product or service, they just use their power to stifle competition. Suddenly their need for competent staff is greatly reduced.
> But that's quite literally what insurance is made for. The only difference is that insurance adds some amount of accountability
In my book, insurance is for unlikely, expensive events. In Germany for example, if an employee is sick for more than six weeks, the company no longer pays their salary, the health insurance takes over. It's likely that an employee is sick for a couple of days, not a case for insurance. Just how it's likely that an employee will want some vacation, also not a case for insurance.
I could however picture a system where companies only pay for the work employees actually do, and the funding for paid time off and sick days comes from some other source. Sounds intriguing. I believe everybody should be able to take some time off work for leisure and sickness, I see that as a human right. How exactly that's achieved, I'm personally very flexible there.