The eternal battle between those that labor and have no say within the structure of their work employment as contrasted to those that essentially dictate the terms of where, what, and how such labor will be deployed is quite obviously the type of the battle that wholly favors the employer over the employee. Further to the point, every single employer, large or small, recognizes that those so seeking employment from them, do so out of a general necessity to obtain wages in order to pay bills so as to thus appropriately uphold responsibilities that people must attend to on a daily basis. This signifies that whether or not the labor market is considered to be “tight” or rather to be suffering from “slack” doesn’t nearly make as much difference to those so seeking employment, as economists will try to make us to believe. We find then that basic laborers so seeking employment are typically without any real power to change the terms and conditions of their employment with anyone, unless they have the agency of a strong labor union, behind them, for in united numbers there is power, and without such, there is not.
So then, in a construct in which many a person needs a job, the advantages of this known fact are all going to be on the employer’s side, which we see demonstrated time and time again, wherever there is the absence of strong labor unions, by virtue of how many an employer is thus able to “get over” on their employees. Though we have labor laws which stipulate the conditions of which overtime will be paid and how much that compensation for that overtime will be, we do so find that there are many employees that have had to do work or are expected to do work “off of the clock”, and therefore to basically labor without compensation at straight pay, let alone time and a half. So too, when it comes to the productivity of employees, we also find that employers are constantly seeking ways to improve that productivity, of which, the basis foundation of such, is to get more work done in the same amount of time – so, for instance, we find that the assembly line for those sorting packages, or of cutting chickens, is sped up, thereby producing from that same employee a higher degree of productivity without that worker typically receiving any corresponding increase in their salary. None of these things that take unfair advantage of employees would be possible or even really conceivable, if employees had the protection and the strength of a strong labor union, backing them, but in absence of such, and in consideration that this government cares not a whit about the common laboring man, this is what so occurs in the real world.
The bottom line is that the labor cost is an important component in the overall profitability of a given company, and when that company can exert pressure, or utilize persuasion, by one means or another, to get more labor out of their workforce, without having to provide a commensurate increase in pay, then the employer, personally reaps the benefit, thus essentially wresting the bread from the mouths of those that they so employ.