[ChrisLomont]

>How much value does the janitorial staff create?

When the company hires them, the company has decided that the company obtains enough value for the transaction. So does the janitorial staff.

>And yet they're having to fight for fair wages? They're the most valuable labor in the company!

Not if someone else is willing to do the job for the same pay - this is market clearing. They're paid what it takes to fill the position, and they show up for that wage. Both sides benefit, otherwise the side without getting benefit would not show up.

[Sohcahtoa82]

So then we are in agreement that wages are not a function of value created by the worker. They pay only what it takes to get the position filled, which is a completely unrelated number to value.

[SideQuark]

>So then we are in agreement that wages are not a function of value created by the worker.

Wages are a function of value created. As a trivial example, wages are capped by total cost to employ, which is driven by wages and legal requirements. There is no way around this on a large scale without a business losing money, i.e., dying.

>which is a completely unrelated number to value

No, this is untrue. Marx had the same thought, but didn't understand that employers also compete for workers, which is why the poorest workers are vastly richer than Marx could have understood.

A simple way you can check it empirically is to take a dataset of companies, compute mean revenue per employee, and correlate to mean wage by company. You'll certainly find that these numbers are completely related.

You can do the same thing using work sectors using BLS data on pay by job type, then revenue generated in those jobs. Again, you'll find a strong correlation between revenue generated per employee and per employee wages.

These empirical tests you can do yourself should convince you wages are tied to value added.

If you then do proper factor analysis to account for other costs varying between companies, such as cost for materials or equipment, the correlation between wages and value becomes stronger.

Edit: here's a dataset to get you started [1]. 1000 companies with # of employees and median wage. Find revenue per company and you're all set to do an initial analysis.

[1] https://www.wsj.com/graphics/how-does-your-pay-stack-up/