Just a side thought, but how do the collective bargaining protections work in the age of automation? Basically like robots as scabs or permanent replacements?

If your work could be fully automated - you wouldn’t have a job right now and collective bargaining wouldn’t be relevant.

> If your work could be fully automated - you wouldn’t have a job right now

To nitpick this - there's a non trivial up-front cost associated with automation. As such using (well, abusing) people is sometimes just plain cheaper than the amortized costs of automating.