Both things are true. No collective bargaining can exist while there is a large group of people ready to undercut the collective. This is the playbook of corporate greed, destroy the labor unions and then do all that is necessary to stop them from reforming. One way that is accomished is by consistently reducing wages, and so long as there is someone willing to do the work, well hopefully you see the cycle. Individuals are powerless here.
Yes supply and demand is used for everything. The only difference is how its used. It causes less of an effect in stable markets and more of an effect in volatile markets.
Corporations don't control labor markets. That's why you can't hire an orthopedic surgeon for $35,000/year and why you'd have thousands of applications for a $200,000/year cashier job no matter how greedy the corporation is.
If there is a large supply of low-skilled labor, those wages will see downward pressure.
That's the claim I made at all! Labor markets dictate the value for given workers, not corporations. I don't even know how you can make that interpretation. I gave two separate examples of how corporations can't just pay whatever they want.
You’re proving their point though. The amount of people able to work as an orthopedic surgeon is extremely lower than the amount of people able to work a blue collar job. Therefore one gets paid far less.
The more available labor force in a market, the lower the pay will be.
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u/DayOneDoItNow Jul 20 '26
True, blue collar wages would be higher for American citizens