Those "generations of laborers" had the option to earn more for less (and less dangerous) work most of the time. It doesn't seem this will be the case now.
Not at all. The changes were sudden and extreme. Look at the original Luddite rebellion for its oldest incarnation, but just look at the mechanizing of factories in the 60s with the introduction of CNCs or protests against automation at ports.
Automation of labor has been an ongoing force for decades and a reality laborers have had to live with for years.
This is of course not true (for ports in particular the writing had been on the wall for more than a decade) but even if it were, there eventually were other jobs. There won't be this time around.
