Since John G. Roberts Jr. became chief justice in 2005, the Supreme Court has repeatedly issued rulings favoring corporate rights over those of individuals. Monday saw another such ruling.

In a 5-4 decision written by first-term Justice Neil Gorsuch, the court ruled that workers can’t band together to challenge labor arbitration agreements imposed by their employers. In an era where only 6.5 percent of private-sector workers are unionized, class action lawsuits had been a way for nonunion employees to force employers to resolve labor disputes. Monday’s ruling in Epic v. Lewis eliminates that option.

Congress could change the law, and it should. But with Republicans in control, that is unlikely. It’s up to voters to force a change.

Epic v. Lewis brought together three similar cases, all with roughly the same set of claims. In the lead case, Jacob Lewis, a technical writer for Epic Systems, a huge Wisconsin-based health care software company, challenged the classification of technical writers as ineligible for overtime. In effect the technical writers were alleging wage theft.

In April 2014, Epic had notified employees by email that wage and hours disputes had to be settled by individual arbitration. If employees continued working at Epic, the email said, they would be deemed to have accepted the deal. Instead Lewis and his colleagues sued and won in lower courts.

But there are conflicts in federal law that have led other courts to decide for employers. The 1935 National Labor Relations Act urged employees to collectively bargain and sue over labor disputes, but that conflicts with the 1925 Federal Arbitration Act, which says that arbitration agreements “shall be valid, irrevocable, and enforceable.”

The high court’s conservative majority said the arbitration act takes precedence and that nothing in the NLRA overrides it. Gorsuch said the law is clear about what Congress intended and that courts have no business deciding otherwise. He might be technically correct but is morally way off base.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote in her dissent: “Congress recognized that for workers striving to gain from their employers decent terms and conditions of employment, there is strength in numbers.” She added that the NLRA and New Deal-era laws like the Norris-La Guardia Act, which outlawed “yellow dog” contracts forbidding unions, are based on the fundamental premise “that employees must have the capacity to act collectively in order to match their employers’ clout in setting terms and conditions of employment.”

One of the great goals of modern corporate conservatism has been the systematic undoing of the progressive reforms of the New Deal and the Great Society. The Roberts court has helped by gutting labor protections, unleashing unlimited political contributions and limiting voting-rights protections.

If Americans want their rights back, they must overcome powerful special interests and elect different people to Congress.