Labor is not a commodity like raw materials since it has the ability not only to price itself, but also to use the proceeds received for wages earned, to speculate in the free market on the management that employs it.
Yes, for a long time the corporations had it all their own way, controlling all aspects because they were able to deliver both high capital returns and earnings. If that is no longer possible, corporations will have to compete for operating capital. Labor would be wise to invest in companies that provide both earnings and a market for their skills and shun corporations that would trade their labor market for trumped up earnings that never really existed.
Sure labor is a commodity and it doesn't have the ability to price itself. If there's a scarcity of labor for a particular skill, the price goes up. If there are 10 overly qualified applicants for every position, price goes down. And labor doesn't speculate on the market. Individuals do that. Individual workers might or might not, but you can't say as a general rule that they do or don't because "labor" is a generalizing term that covers a lot of ground.
Every time anybody purchases an item they have actually invested in the company they bought it from. They have evaluated the company's efficiancy and quality control and decided that they were deserving of profit. If the company offered you a piece of shite, you don't invest, they don't get a profit the shareholders don't get paid the workers get fired.
Shareholders should do this same thing- inspect the company for effiency and quality before they invest. If they just invested because "Maria said the stock was hot" they only have themselves to blame. One type of investment is front end ie speculation, before the product has proved its worth, the other is after the product is made and the consumer conducts his analysis of the finished item and gives a thumbs up/down.
The best thing the American people (or any people for that matter) can do is to demand the best products for the cheapest prices and not reward companies that make inferior products (even if that means buying foreign things) AND to demand a gov't that is the most friendly to business. If you mess up this process you get corporations existing on hot air because they are propped up by the gov't or out of patriotism for no valid reason. Eventually they will fall and the larger they managed to get before the fall, the more people (read workers) it affects.
Scandal and corruption is part of the jungle. That's for the shareholders and consumers to sort out not the gov't.