I've worked retail. Employers try shenanigans like that, but it backfires because the lines get long and people start looking at alternatives. Business suffer

I've worked retail. Employers try shenanigans like that, but it backfires because the lines get long and people start looking at alternatives. Business suffers, and then either they hire the people back or they go out of business. There is always the threat of laying off staff instead of paying more, but only a relatively minor portion of management is enough of a maniac to actually go through with it. I worked at a McDonalds during a minimum wage hike (you can tell this was a long time ago), and while everybody said it would result in cut staff few went through with the threat. Sure you could find examples here and there, but at the end of the day they were already operating with the minimum amount of staff they could get away with. There was no slack in the system. McDonalds corporate even realized this and started talking up fully automated restaurants. I think they even built a pilot store somewhere. They dust it off anytime people start talking about minimum wage hikes, even though it makes no sense economically even if we were to double the minimum wage overnight.