Oh, I agree that there are ways to improve productivity and employee satisfaction at the same time, and some companies might choose to do that.

But let's be real - there are likely more people that jobs that they are willing to do in the US for the short to medium term. As the 'jobless' recovery showed, companies were perfectly able to squeeze out additional 'productivity' (ok, I'll agree that the way we measure market performance isn't really that great, but it's the metrics that we largely agree to play the game by) while cutting labour force, and maybe even per-worker pay, and likely driving down employee satisfaction, other than how glad they were to still have a job.

As long as 'hey, look be glad that you have a job' is a legitimate threat, for the majority of workers, they're really out of luck, cause again, let's be real. The right thing that benefits both employees and the employer is not the same thing as the right thing that benefits both the employees plus the guy you just fired and the employer.