Prices don't reward workers based on their skills. They only signal what skills are most in demand and the costs of different options. Prices change rapidly in response to new sources of supply and new products. Volatile prices are always randomly pulling the rug out from under even the most skilled workers. However skilled they are, workers can't count on their skills being rewarded in the market. Being highly skilled might improve their odds, but luck is also a big factor.
The idea that unskilled workers get what they deserve is not true. The inequality of bargaining power between workers and employers puts workers under more pressure to sell their labor than employers are under to buy it. Employers can hold out longer because they have more money and better alternatives. That means employers have more power to not take the deal and so they get better terms.
I will give you an example: I have an “employee”, a part-time ranch hand. He lives in my home, rent free. I provide him with 3 home cooked meals, often of his personal requests, seven days a week, no charge.
I do his laundry and buy his work clothing, gloves, jackets, pants, boots, Dickies. He has free use of a vehicle for both business and personal use. I pay his medical bills from work related injuries.
He gets paid nothing in cash outside of these things all of which in our area at current prices, adds up to be about $4000 a month, not including MY LABOR (I work for free essentially).
Not bad for a part time gig. He doesn’t have much free time because he earns money at a full time job as well. So he generally works 70 hour weeks. I work both independent of him and by his side doing the exact same work or more.
This has been our arrangement for almost five years now. In that time, housing costs have increased $2000 a month (1 br apt). The cost of feeding him has gone up $500 a month. Insurance on the vehicle he drives has gone up $100 a month and the cost of his clothing has gone up $1200 a year.
In essence, I am paying $3000 a month more than I did back when he started just FIVE years ago. 75% of the increases have happened in the last two years.
In essence he has gotten a raise of $36,000 a year from us since he started and I am out that same amount if expressed on a balance sheet.
Additionally, because of the stupidity of this administration and their quest for chasing their white whale of “climate apocalypse”, the costs of producing have increased by 50%, the price we get at market is down 20% . I would like to know, where is MY RAISE? Where should I, as "an employer" picket? The Dutch farmers have the right idea.
What will grind the economy to a halt is not the rail workers strike. It is inflation, never ending printing press and a complete disregard for how the economy works.
