I heard this reasoning a lot. I understand logic and intent behind it — certainly a noble one. But I think that it is incorrect because it ignores unintended co

I heard this reasoning a lot. I understand logic and intent behind it — certainly a noble one. But I think that it is incorrect because it ignores unintended consequences, like the story with award for catching cobras in India. You're shifting the power balance in an artificial way that doesn't fully change it. You're only shifting it in one particular market; this power balance still exists in other countries. Which creates a potential for arbitrage: instead of hiring people in a country which enacts those measures, hire them elsewhere. You're also not exactly making the employee "more powerful"; you're actually limiting his freedom on the market. You're making his services more expensive to a buyer, and he can do nothing about it. He might have wanted to offer his services at a discount to get an edge above competitors who have more experience, for example; now he's unable to. Do you really think that limiting someone's freedom is empowering? That's how you get 2x salaries for engineers in US as compared to Europe, which leads to many brilliant engineers leaving Europe for US (or working remotely), which, with higher commitment requirement, contributes to the difference in startup scene between Europe and US. Of course, engineers are not the type of workers whom do you think about in such a conversation, but this happens in many other industries as well.