Be careful, @elbanditoroso. There’s a lot of misinformation coming out. The two people may have been one of the guards who mans the metal detector on the way out, and a man going through that metal detector. There may be a great deal of resentment about being searched on the way out of the factory. It may have started with two people, but it doesn’t flame up like that without more widely shared resentment.
Of course, without profit, there can be no factory. So to say that corporations put profits before people for centuries is to say that if you don’t produce more than you consume, the factory goes bankrupt. Unions were formed to help workers improve working conditions. They were not formed to do something about profit.
Even in Marxist nations, where workers own the means of production, they care about profit. Or they should care about it. If the management structure is wrong, then it is hard to run the business well, and the company doesn’t make a profit, and even when the workers own the factory, if they don’t make a profit, they go bankrupt. Although it can take a lot longer for that to happen. Ironically, even when the workers own the factory, the “fat cat” bosses don’t invest in workers.
It isn’t profit that is the problem. It is management. Managers who make choices that devalue workers, and that take as much profit out of them as possible are managing short-sightedly. But the system works in a way. Workers can only take so much before they get pissed off and rebel. Change is slow, but it happens eventually.