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I told people during the dotcom boom that they needed to keep an eye towards organizing themselves, but they were all sold the "freelance" employee line. Unions work on multiple levels, all the way from very little workplace involvement to full on involvement. During the "boom" years people were like "aww, man we don't need unions". But thats alot like saying "I don't need insurance because I'm healthy now". In either case you plan ahead, hell, the companies were planning ahead, they were thinking about how to get you to do twicw the work at half the price. Businesses organize for mutual benefit,why not employees?

The H1-B issue is a symptom of a larger problem, namely lake of political clout in working America. We don't have the lobbying power, and the candidates are choosen by donors before they ever get to the election ballot.

Bartlett and Steele in their book, America: Who Stole the Dream? detailed Corporate Americas strategy to reduce labor costs, tax liability, and increase governmental influence. This was in 1996, the "boom" only delayed the collapse, teh strutural damage was already underway. There was a section on H1-B visas as well, adn why corp America loves them. But we are all wage slaves in some way or another, unless you make your money the old fashioned way, inheritence.

You're right that the economic problems that we face today have been building for a long time. Some of these go back to policies Reagan implemented. One of the best economic texts I've read is Wealth and Democracy by Kevin Phillips. It covers all of American history, and looks at how much influence the wealthy had at different times, and it also compared the economic policies of the internet bubble to other speculative bubbles.

One of the most striking things it details is the shifting of the tax burden away from corporations and the wealthiest Americans, and onto the lower and middle class. Right now, the government makes 3 times the revenue on payroll taxes that they make on corporate taxes. Companies like Halliburton and Enron didn't even pay taxes some years...they got money back. And the percentage of income paid by the middle 20% of americans is just about equal to the top .5%, at about 25% for both. Considering the middle 20% make something like 40-60 grand, that 25% is taking a big chunk of their income...the top .5% (people that make over 1 million dollars a year) are much better prepared to pay the 26% that they pay, on average.