There has to be an unending vigilance, not just a fight because fights end. Older generations fought for workers rights with unions and their kids lazily let it slide away. The rich never stop taking because all they have to do hire people to lobby, lawyer, and manipulate for their ends. Workers have to continually push to take and keep their piece of the pie. Governments can make laws and rules to protect workers but those can be changed or weakened without vigilance. A good government official can help and their successor strip it away. Workers only strength is together. Collective action is the way but it’s a perpetual action.
Great points. I think there's a need for education in order to create this vigilance. For example unions continually teaching new hires the history of how they got to receive the compensation they do. Also lobbying for introduction of labor union history, role and current affairs in high school curriculums. I don't know enough myself so I'm not aware if this has already happened in the past and been the case, and it still failed to create lasting vigilance.
It wasn’t just laziness. Corporations have become deviously adept at preventing unionization over the last thirty years. Couple that with some prolonged unemployment, and many were forced into compliance just to pay their bills.
Maybe calling it laziness alone was unfair, but the robber barrens of old were devious too and far more brutal. And a generation who voted in Reagan then turned around decades later to vote in Trump clearly is being lazy on their understanding of government. They sold out the middle class because they didn’t do the hard work of looking at policy and fighting these corporate stooges. They fell for the charismatic strong man because it was easier than paying attention to complex issues.
In between those two there were back-to-back Republicans with Reagan/Bush, then another two terms of W after Clinton that all fought against the interests of workers rights. There were massive campaigns disengaging Gen X from politics, not unlike the “genocide Joe” and “BoTh SiDeS” arguments of today.
Since Reagan, every Republican win coincides with low Democratic voter turnout. They don’t need to convince you to vote Republican, just that your candidate isn’t worth showing up for.