I'm a highly educated, relatively gifted employee who has worked for quite a few dumbshit companies that don't much respect their employees. They know that we are easily replaceable. So, they do what they are required to do, but when push comes to shove, they push you right out. Someone else will come right into the slot if the money's right.
Let's put it another way.
There had to be sexual harassment laws because men everywhere are going to poach on the good looking women. Always have, always will. Harrumphing that "The well-run business" blah, blah, blah. Was Jack Welch a lousy businessman? No. Look who he married (and divorced, and why he got divorced). Some things are just so, and economic interests are never strong enough to override either the human sex drive or the powerful human will to dominate. So, the laws have to step in and try and balance the score. WITHOUT labor laws, employees are UTTERLY at the mercy of employers, because the employer controls the money they need to live, pay mortgages, etc.
A really good looking woman, 30 years ago, could not simply leave one job and not get sexually harrassed in the next one. That's just the way it was, and is, and everyone knows it. The law is the big hairy heavy handed club that has allowed women to stand their ground in the job they're in, and tell the big boss and the underboss to BACK OFF, and mean it, and not have to send our resumes. The power balance has been restored.
Which does not mean that powerful men down still poach on the pretty help. But it DOES mean that when it goes sour, the man is probably going to have to just suck up having the woman still there, making money, and be unable to touch her. And if he tries to retaliate, HIS butt gets fired or - if he's the top boss - HIS home assets get raided by the courts.
The law is not there to protect the strong but the weak, and there's nobody as weak in our society as a simple wage earner facing his - or her - employer.
Employers like it that way, which is understandable.
But wage earners do not, which is also understandable.
And it's a democracy.
And there are a lot more wage earners than big bosses.
Ergo, detailed employment regulations, which are not going to go away, and cannot be done without.
Yes, I understand the reality of the corporate environment and that without laws and regulations utter chaos would reign. I'm agreeing with you, it is needed to protect the weak. Survival of the fittest is still alive and well and probably always will be and it can be a very dirty world out there.