Workers opposed to the notion would group in firms that do not offer these benefits, and workers who like the idea, or are indifferent, would go to firms that offer such benefits. If this sounds like a fantasy, it is only because we are not able to observe the alternative. Government weakens a firm's ability to decide pension benefits by snatching firm revenues and putting them in government pension plans. We get a hint of how markets can resolve issues about which people feel strongly by examining smoking in restaurants. Where government policies do not intervene, restaurants either declare themselves smoking or non-smoking roughly in proportion to the proportion of smokers.
Private markets allow people to agree to disagree.
It is surprising that in this era where all exalt the expression of individuality that so many allow the government to stuff themselves and all others in the same Mao Tse Tung jacket of social policy. In his book The Open Society and Its Enemies , Karl Popper warned that broad-ranging social policies on matters that are not clearly the task of government are a form of utopianism that transforms private beliefs into public intolerance. No one knows for sure what is the public interest and what is the private interest, but a good guide is that if the government is taxing Peter to pay Paul, there is room for mischief and discord. Government should not be allowed to cut the pie of national wealth. Redistribution should not be collectivized, because such an act forces some to subsidize other's beliefs on questions of private conscience.