But once these mandates became law, corporations used the arguments of "why do we need unions if the law already protects workers?" This and following Reagan's firing of the air traffic controllers changed the image of unions. They were now corrupt middlemen that charged you a fee to be part of the club.
And it worked. Trying to form a union is now news instead of being the natural course of things. I wager that most people in the tech side of Amazon have a hard time grasping why their coworkers are trying to unionize. (we get paid well, what's the fuss all about?)
I hope they vote in their interest, but I'm doubtful it will pass (I hope I'm wrong). These laws that are supposed to protect workers are enforced by the company's HR department[1]. The problem is that HR will side with the company before siding with any employee.
I think we need to start looking into reforming HR and making it a public service.