Hobo has it right, when business is soft you must re-evaluate your business model/find new markets/an edge over competitors and invest in that, cutting workers pay is counterproductive and will just speed up your race to the bottom. Besides payroll is not that big an expense, but pissed off workers reduce productivity and loyalty. And how will u make a better product than your competitor when you lost the loyalty of your workers??
Conservatives always look at the workers when cutting costs cuz of ideology, not business sense- because they think there should not be a middle class, there should only be 2 classes:
1. The ruling class of the rich taking on a form of monarchs or oligarchs, all powerful and non accountable to wrong doing through a parallel legal system
2. The working poor with no rights, no influence, no extra time to get educated, badly informed by corporate media and no prospect on making the jump to the ruling class
This is why they want tort reform, so the people cannot have accountability through large judgements from class action suits wich is the only way to punish a corporation for wrong doing atm. This is why they do not like unions because it is a form of democracy in the work place and gives the workers rights and power. This is why they do not like the masses to be educated beyond what's needed to be a good worker- note the cost of college. This is why there is no labor section in your newspaper anymore, but there is a business section. This is why they argue that corporations are people and should have civil rights, but not get punished like real people for wrong doing. there used to be a corporate death penalty! This is why anything that is financed by the people for the people is attacked and demonized as communism and privatization suggested wether or not it makes financial sense.
Whenever a middle class is strong, the people start demanding things like work place safety, 40 hour work week, benefits, equality under the law, civil rights, human rights, clean water to drink an air to breathe. The 1960's were a scary time for conservatives because their power structure was challenged by a strong and educated middle class.