I don't agree that the worker's interest is or should be in minimizing company profit - this is a very zero sum approach that doesn't really cover companies that aren't stagnant or dying.
I agree with your general point that a business CAN increase profit by reducing costs, including by reducing employee compensation (and there are lots of shortsighted, greedy people out there) but increasing revenue instead is often much more significant and, in theory, can increase both employee take home and company profit.
A business is a mechanism to turn labor and other resources into revenue and often aligns with paying for more expensive talent in order to provide more valuable revenue. Businesses that are failing or stagnant can't grow revenue anymore and have to cut costs instead.
I don't think the imbalance between workers and companies is in a zero sum, adversarial relationship. I think the imbalance is in who gets to decide what to grow and what to cut (which is one place where collective bargaining helps a great deal).
The aim of the worker is not usually to kill the firm, I assumed that went without saying, as that would ultimately 'minimize' their wages. But the reason to work in a society where one needs money is to receive a wage, as maximal as possible. These incentives will always contradict whatever real but necessary need there is for 'genuine interest' or 'social tendencies'. Constantly businesses attempt to harness this value, (which is the source of revolutions in productivity beyond the daily rote labor) through trying to present the relationship as anything but transactional. But as their interest in this value is ultimately a monetary interest, what the worker returns to them will be done on a transactional basis. An inhuman force rules over all.
I agree with your general point that a business CAN increase profit by reducing costs, including by reducing employee compensation (and there are lots of shortsighted, greedy people out there) but increasing revenue instead is often much more significant and, in theory, can increase both employee take home and company profit.
A business is a mechanism to turn labor and other resources into revenue and often aligns with paying for more expensive talent in order to provide more valuable revenue. Businesses that are failing or stagnant can't grow revenue anymore and have to cut costs instead.
I don't think the imbalance between workers and companies is in a zero sum, adversarial relationship. I think the imbalance is in who gets to decide what to grow and what to cut (which is one place where collective bargaining helps a great deal).