If you look at some of the big executive minds that started to guide businesses in the 80's, you'll find such gems as Jack Welch, (a guy who created growth for the company by cutting over 100'000 jobs during his tenure at GE. This ballooned the company's net worth by decreasing overhead, while 'squeezing' as much work as humanly possible from the workers who remained, shunting the savings to shareholders).

Or, Al "Chainsaw" Dunlap, a CEO famous for his "Mean Business" approach, and walking into a company, firing thousands, which would drive up the Stock prices by accordingly, and walking away with copious piles of cash from the savings of not having to pay the workforce. He was only able to actually DO that in the post-Reagan era, however, as good early attempts at doing so in the 50's and 60's were met with outright hostility from Unions and employees alike, up to and including death threats (not that I condone that, but keep it in mind to illustrate that Management had reason to FEAR Unions, and the collective mass of employees they represented).

If you look at early 20th century Unions, part of the reason they were so successful was that they exploited network effects to overcome the advantages offered by the high amount of Capital wielded by Industrialists. You can't out wait your company, because the Union coffers are so small in comparison to what the Company gets from investors... Including those who have their retirement managed as an index fund (when such things eventually became popular). However, if you getting messed with by Company X suddenly caused the workers of Company Y to strike, who was a buyer from Company X, and so on down the line, you INSTANTLY force the management into a position where they HAVE to come to the table and negotiate. It also puts pressure on industry leaders to crack down on bad actors amongst their number, for fear of a strike cascading and enveloping them in drama because the bad actor was being a wanker.

The Taft-Hartley Act, however, put an end to that. It illegalized the practice of secondary striking, lumping it in with things like jurisdictional and wildcat striking as an "Unfair Labor practice". While Wildcat and jurisdictional strikes were undeniably incredibly disruptive, and sometimes violent; a peaceful secondary strike was a way of sending a strong, clear message to abusive management. You mess with one of us, you mess with ALL of us.

The Taft-Hartley Act, born out of the ire of a couple REALLY poorly timed strikes by Mining Unions in the midst of WWII, was the beginning of the end of the Golden Age of Union influence. The same influence mind you that made the Baby Boomer's general economic blueprint work. You got higher pay and better benefits through the increased oomph provided by collectivization.

However, those benefits had to get paid out of somewhere. The market ended up taking the brunt of it. Growth numbers were there, and "reasonable enough" (it got most Gen X/Millenial parents where they are), but NOTHING like the numbers you started to see in the post-Reagan era. Those numbers that were achieved during that time were largely spurred through increased globalization/outsourcing, further degradation of the effectiveness of Unions through loss of faith by their members due to the tying of their hands by Taft-Hartley, and a successful anti-Union Public Opinion campaign by conservatives (generally). If you want to get what I mean, think about what a Union Shop is. If you think it's a shop that won't hire you because you are not in the Union, you are incorrect. It is a shop where by being hired you BECOME part of the Union. Big difference. Many tried to paint organized labor as the muscle pushing the common man out of a job, when nothing could be further from the truth.

Globaliztion in particular had a dramatic damping effect on organized labor's ability to get things done. As Manufacturing and the likes moved to other countries, the Unions that kept pay as high as it was found themselves out of place. They couldn't influence what was going on overseas, and what good would it do for American workers, even if they could?

Right now, you have an economy basically working for the shareholders. Which DOESN'T tend to include most new people entering the workforce, because the mentality to maximize those growth numbers to attract investment is first and foremost in the economic zeitgeist, and short of business coming back into the States, and Labor being able to reorganize successfully (which is still nigh impossible courtesy of Taft-Hartley shifting the bias in favor of the holders of Capital by preventing the exploitation of network effects) you will likely see the current economic trends continue. Namely, stagnant wages, increasingly expensive stock, goods prices continuing to increase outstripping wage growth, and capital continuing to consolidate in a smaller and smaller portion of the population.

Give the book
Going Postal: Rage, Murder, and Rebellion in Reagan's Workplaces to Clinton's Columbine and Beyond by Mark Ames a read.

Also take a look into the history of Labor Unions in the United States. Wikipedia is as good a place to start as any as long as you audit your sources.

It's a very OLD process that had it's roots as far back as the Industrial Revolution in the U.S. but every bit worth the time to read up on.