Yeah, that's great and all, but tell me what talent or skill it takes to drive a forklift. Or dig a ditch. There is none.
Unless you want to seriously advocate that it is in our economic interest to have a huge portion of society working at poverty level wages, the market response to low wages is collective bargaining. It avoids the need for any government interference, and everyone goes home happy.
Yes, I seriously advocate that employers pay what a job is worth, and I seriously advocate that employees get paid according to the value of their labor.
If it takes no skill to dig a ditch, the pay should be exactly what that job is worth. If an employee has more skill than "no skill", he will find other labor that is a much more efficient use of his skills.
BTW, it takes more skill than you're giving credit for to "drive a forklift". I've seen some people who are absolute artists in this endeavor. They should be paid according to their skill, this is the most efficient use of their labor.
Any skewing of this system of a product (labor or whatever) costing exactly what the market says it should is an inefficiency in our economy that costs everyone.
Labor unions break this system in the worst way - they use FORCE to keep their monopoly on the product of labor, and this hurts the overall economy, and everyone in it.
You paint a rosy picture of unions and the wonders of collective bargaining to stop the greedy companies from profiting from little children...
But what forces are in play to keep the unions from spiralling out of control, demaning more and more, higher and higher wages, less hours per week, until eventually you're paying people 150K per year to work 20 hours a week driving a forklift? Why not 300K for 10 hours a week to push a broom?
The saddest part about this is that the shipping companies have been stupid enough to get themselves into this position, leaving them NO bargaining room whatsoever. When 10,500 union members have the power to shut down all shipping on the entire west coast, that's power baby... and yet we're supposed to believe that their union leaders are only going to wield this power for "the good"? Give me a major break.
To shutdown all west coast shipping because they have technophobia... who's the big meanie here? Some evil coal mining company making 12 year olds work in the mines, or some union members shutting down our country to benefit it's already wealthy membership?