I understood your point the first time. I still respectfully disagree, but perhaps someone with more understanding of macro can step in here. In idealized, inf

I understood your point the first time. I still respectfully disagree, but perhaps someone with more understanding of macro can step in here. In idealized, infinitely large, rational labor markets, wages are still driven by the interaction of supply and demand. Even in this model, you are ignoring the other half of the equilibrium--that only where employment is available and desired are wages available. It is perfectly possible for large pools of skilled workers to fail to find employment because of insufficient employment opportunity (as an example, consider the tech crash, or Detroit), or for jobs which do not require special skills to command astronomical prices as a result of insufficient labor supply (e.g. Alaskan fisheries or nursing). Of course, the market is finite. This makes it possible for group pressures to distort the wage price point. You correctly identified one half of these pressures: unionization. The other half is employer pressure, in which a company dominates enough of the job pool that it can set uncompetitive wages. That's a form of monopoly, and is why some folks get really angry about Walmart showing up in their town. Oh, and government regulatory pressure is acting on both sides of this dynamic in various ways, from tax structures to discrimination and safety laws. It gets worse, actually, because perfect information is not available reflecting the market state, there's a significant lag time between training and employment, and people were never rational actors to begin with. If this is unconvincing, I encourage you to consider the constraint of social capital.