Namely: If you accept that the primary reason for a business to exist is to employ people and give them money, then it follows that the business should sacrifice its bottom line for the sake of the employees-- give them raises, play along with unions, change what the company makes or sells-- whatever it takes to keep the employees happy, even if it kills the company to do so. But if you believe the business' purpose is to make money, then it's the business' duty to cut costs wherever possible, including in payroll (especially when you can increase efficiency while you're at it, as in employing a machine instead of a person).

But if you believe the company exists to create goods & services, then you do what's necessary to keep making the best products possible, whether that means sacrificing employee benefits or stockholder profits. Happy employees are important to making good products, and so is a healthy bottom line. You gotta maintain both.

But a company on a shoestring can make products by slashing costs and benefits and increasing efficiency; but it can't make anything if stockholders don't invest. I have to conclude that my free-floatingness, if you put it in a centrifuge and spun it up, would come to rest on the side of the stockholders, because while without workers all you have is dormant ideas on paper, without the bottom line you have nothing but lawsuits.