When Franco's Fascist army, supported by Italian black-shirts and Nazi warplanes, attacked free Republican Spain, construction trade unions defended the capitol, Madrid. The Spanish trade unionists knew their enemy well. Half a century later, much of the world is still not free, and nowhere on earth do free unions co-exist peacefully with oppression. Where trade unions are really free, the people are free. Where no free unions exist, there you find dictators, repressive governments and institutional corruption.
Free unions equal free people.
Even in times of change and uncertainty, public apathy is the norm. In America, forever free of established Fascist power, fewer and fewer people take part in elections even as fear and poverty haunt our cities and farms. And, Americans are not immune to the seductive lure of Fascist order. Fascism has no time or patience for the niceties of personal liberty or individual freedom. America has it's share of Fascist thinkers, and our collective memory of our own recent history is remarkably short and dim.