My assumption up until now was that that was correct: treating them better would cost more money, and this was the money:aggravation ratio we had arrived at (in part because minimum wage put a floor on the money side of the equation). What I am wondering now is if that's not true, if firms are deliberately upping the aggravation (e.g. denying them lockers, the amortized cost of which would be nothing) not because it's a direct cost savings, but because it makes workers tolerate other cost savings they otherwise wouldn't (like backbreaking labor). It need not actually be deliberate in the sense of conscious: if employers that hire dicks as first level managers do better, you will end up with mostly companies with dicks as first level managers, one way or another.