A society cannot rely on a business whose sole motivation is profitability to provide power to what they view as a liability, not an asset.
It's up to the company to fulfil its mutually-agreed terms of contract to those employees. Which in most cases means giving them the dignity and security of a monthly paycheque.
In a free market economy (that isn't overly constrained by government and unions), employees can gain all the "power" they like by starting a company of their own, and setting whatever rules they like.
If you're seeking "power" without taking responsbility (i.e. running your own compnany), sounds like you want to indulge in politics, as opposed to a good-faith employee-employer relationship.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_average...
Keep in mind that there was a massive rise in C-level and especially CEO compensation compared to most other wages. Arguably this can be traced back to a specific book being rather popular among wealthy investors and entrepreneurs that argued CEOs are underpaid, which many CEOs agreed with and convinced the investors to also agree with. But this does nothing for the wages of anyone outside this group because C-level compensation is orders of magnitude removed from that of anyone lower in the ladder.
The US has the 3rd highest median wages, and Sweden has the 14th highest median wage.
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/median-in...