1) Collectively getting the better stake of the pie influences other organizations compensation methods/amounts
2) the market is telling employees what to do, meaning that it doesn’t matter that an individual can do far more work for less pay somewhere else - just don’t do those things.
Companies structurally and intentionally pay the average employee less than that employee generates in value. (If they paid more on average, they'd obviously either decide to never start or would go bankrupt. If they paid people working equal to their contributions on average, they'd show no profit and would have no reserves to cover for employees who are out on paid leaves that society or the employees want companies to cover the costs of.)
The underpayment relative to value delivered is a necessary condition (at least in my opinion, by simple math above). If you want to capture all the net value you create, you should work for yourself. For many (including me), I'd rather trade away some of the upside in exchange for a much lower stress existence.
As it stands, all the DoJ was capable of was issuing guidance that acknowledged that crimes were committed that should have led to jail time, and politely asks corporate executives to not commit those crimes again, on pain of another chiding letter.
basically, because the government also wants competition in the market, they can't be the reason why there is no competition after they curb stomp one of the major few competitors in many fields.
there is some degree of truth in this, but it has also been co-opted to prevent any meaningful consequence for people and their organizations, once they are big enough