>That gives sort of an air of nostalgia to the song. I'm no expert on
>popular music: is there any tendency in it to be a bit backward-looking?
Could be.
In the case of Take this Job and Shove It you're talking about "outlaw" country. In this case it was outlaw in more ways than one since it was written by David Allan Coe, who did time in prison in the '60s, and was made popular by Johnny Paycheck, who went to prison ten years after the song was a hit. I don't think either one of those guys would be joiners, of unions or anything else.