That is the leverage unions have. Do you expect them not to use it? The union isn't there to protect the economy, it's to protect its members.

No, they're pointing out the "right" way is also corrupt and the problem is deeper-rooted. It being done plainly is obviously worse, but the corruption runs deeper than just this.

I think there's an even more obvious criticism of that first point: The ligature is two characters wide, the character isn't. That's a pretty easy tell - fira code doesn't narrow it much (I think it does slightly, but I've never really noticed, it looks two characters wide).