Isn't this the same thing? Companies want to extract the last drop of life from they employees, and they don't think it makes sense anymore. If companies wanted to keep them, they would just let these employees work less (which is basically the same as paying more per worker).
Companies are just made up of people, so that's a very bitter view of huge swathes of our species. Is human society really just the vicious race to the moral low ground you describe? As a species we have our failings, for sure, but I believe that most people, most of the time and with the freedom to choose try to do the right thing as they see it, and that's as true of people who work for companies as for people who don't.
