>In private non-union workplaces, the rules would be changed.
-Not all of the rules can be changed by employers' whim alone, as some -of them are federal and state laws. There are myriad government -regulations concerning occupational health and safety -<http://www.osha.gov/index.html>, wages and hours -<http://www.dol.gov/esa/whd/>, environment -<http://www.epa.gov/epahome/workplac.htm>, and other subjects, whose -enforcement workers must take into their own collective hands.
And when workers insist on the rules being followed, even basic ones like overtime and minimum wage laws, they get fired quite often. The reality is that even government regulations only get enforced when workers are already collectively organized. In large numbers of industries, like restaurants as one I'm familiar with, a MAJORITY of workplaces regularly ignore overtime and other basic laws.
If you protest, you no longer have a job.
Unless unions actively support worker organizing, they can't usually win on their own, so looking to the "unorganized workplaces" as the source of worker upheaval is just a fantasy.
Nathan Newman