It's so true is ridiculous. With enough people in the work pool employers don't need to be fair to employees. Someone else will be willing to take the abuse. It's incredibly sad that we are reduced to mere labor and not people.
My anecdote is my job is fairly specialized. It isn't hard to find a degreed engineer, but what I do is a bit of a niche. This has pros and cons. On the one hand, the people at work are fairly loyal. I don't mean loyal to the job, I mean loyal to each other. My boss knows he can't ax me and hire a new grad to fill my role, not without committing years of training. I also know I can't leave here and jump to a new job in town seamlessly because there just isn't anyone else in town who does just what we do. And even if I do leave, it's a small enough niche that I'll keep seeing the same names. So none of us can burn bridges. The corporate structure that signs our paychecks has no loyalty to us, but collectively we do with each other. It's an arrangement that largely seems to work.
I really like this post. It's amazing to me that your coworkers and you have such loyalty for one another. I have held a lot of jobs and no careers. It seems to me that people (especially at this level) only look out for themselves (with a few outliers naturally). Part of this is because the masses aren't niched. I'm not sure how many niches out they're but without schooling it's incredibly hard to find one that suites you and college isn't for everyone. I see the issue as being one where we are too busy fighting for ourselves that we fail to see the greater picture. We can't gain our employers respect and loyalty because we are too busy jumping through hoops and over eachother for whatever scrap we can get. Considering that most lower end jobs pay you way too little for the work you do (especially if you go above and beyond) we deserve their loyalty and respect. I'm not saying we shouldn't be firable. I just feel that a lot of employers overlook that WE make the business run and if we would stop letting them walk all over us their businesses would collapse. Granted this is partially because businesses are dishonest and the miles and miles of red tape and the ability for money to buy media to change the public's view protect those businesses. After all the laws are designed to protect big business considering how much money they put into presidential campaigns. Is only fair right. #satire