If we are negotiating the best wages for our labor, then aren't companies and HR in general holding the workers back from fair negotiation, or more specifically they're colluding on wages because of their standardization of compensation across an industry?
Isn't placing a knowable quantity and limitation on compensation based on experience, age, variety of factors, and then having access to information of how much that's worth to competitors a way to keep those wages similar across the board? Isn't that collusion?
I think that having a minimum wage is a baseline. Having collective contracts is also a helpful marker, but for those who are opposed to collective organizing, do they not realize that the very concept of HR and its digital tentacles (ie. LinkedIn, GlassDoor, etc…) are the reason why our wages have been so persistently low for decades?
The wages are not merely artificially suppressed. They are suppressed through collusion of HR professionals and corporate data collectors who have been colluding to keep them at certain levels.