Unions are why your friend isn't worked to death while he waits for his teacher's certification.
I ask this 100% seriously.
Sometimes harder workers are harder to find, so they get paid more. Sometimes they're not. If working harder simply led to more money, salary negotiation would not be a teachable skill.
People have literally fought and died for the right to unions, for unions to be taken seriously. A bunch privileged silicon valley tech workers (not me, I'm a privileged seattle based tech worker, totally different ;) ) write off unions as inefficient and useless.
/s
Without Unions.
Are you of the opinion that more than a century of labor fighting for reasonable working hours and conditions meant nothing, or are you just wanting to give Ford all the credit, despite him drawing on decades of increased movement toward an 8-hour workday before he ever decided to try it as a company policy?