[dleslie]

They aren't cackling like saturday morning cartoon villains; they're applying a rational choice to minimize operation costs.

This is less true the closer their personal connection to their employees is, I suspect; but many minimum wage employers have a bureaucratic buffer/barrier between the minimum wage employees and those making the decisions about operational costs.

[barrow-rider]

This is called Middle Management, and exists entirely to buffer high level decision makers from day-to-day workers.