It's easy to say "Oh, I wish we had unions like we did back in the day." But we had unions back in the day and they didn't stop things from turning out the way they did. What we need is a sober analysis of the class dynamics and why things went awry, and what we can do differently going forward.

The government in the postwar era used a carrot and a stick to root out communists. The stick was McCarthyism, but the carrot was the fact that the government was willing to cooperate with unions provided they showed a willingness to purge communists, like the AFL/CIO did.

The decision of unions to cooperate with that is a major reason why everything has gone to hell. In the short term, sure, they got to enjoy a higher standard of living. But all the while, the ruling class was building power through imperialism and anticommunism. At a certain point, they were simply powerful enough that they no longer needed the unions' cooperation at all, and so they betrayed and dumped them, in the Carter/Reagan era. The only thing that could've stopped that shift would have been if the unions had stood together in solidarity, for example in a general strike. But "standing in solidarity in recognition of a common class interest" is the sort of thing that commies do.

Decades of riding high on the promises of the New Deal era transformed unions to become almost entirely self-interest, with no solidarity even with other domestic workers, much less with the global south. And of course, all of this is a very white perspective on things. The offer to get a high standard of living in exchange for ratting out commies was never really extended to minority groups. And again, confronting racism and using your voice and position to blah blah, again, commie shit.

"You give up all ideals, all solidarity, all high minded ideals of justice and equality, and kick out the people who won't, and we'll give you some real nice benefits. And who cares if we get to secure our position in a generation or two, you'll have retired by then anyway." This is the foundation of the "left" anticommunism that won out in the West. Of course, now, that offer has been rescinded, because the ruling class already got what they wanted. And yet, we still have plenty of people who love punching left at communists for no real reason. They're not even offering a reward for it anymore! But whether because of force of habit or indoctrination or whatever brainworms, people are still throwing around "tankie" the way they used to throw around "pinko" or "red."

If we manage to rebuild unions, we need to ensure that they do not become compromised by narrow self-interest like they did before. We have the ability to build them from the ground up with the correct approach, but it's only through recognizing the mistakes of the past that we have the opportunity to correct them.