This belief keeps being bandied around this thread as if it's an absolute truth.
It's not.
The engineer that redesigns an engine to make it lighter, less expensive, and more fuel efficient is going to make a hell of a lot more profit for CAT than a factory worker. The sales executive that negotiates a substantial sale to a large mining operation because of the more efficient engine makes a hell of a lot more profit for CAT than a factory worker. The PR coordinator that publicizes these sales wins in trade and business magazines, leading to an increase in the stock price, makes a hell of a lot more profit for CAT than a factory worker. The financier that uses their increased share price, AR, sales leads, and public goodwill to negotiate lower interest rates on bonds and notes make a hell of a lot more profit for CAT than a factory worker.
I think you get the idea. This romantic belief that factory workers are solely responsible for the profits CAT generates is laughable. Now, don't take this to mean that I think CAT's manufacturing process is worthless. It's not: without it, CAT can't do business. But just because the process is important, doesn't mean that its individual participants are. Line work in industrial manufacturing is highly routinized. The people performing it are essentially interchangeable cogs, and there are plenty of unemployed able-bodied workers that CAT can train and throw on the line if the existing workers leave, both specifically in the areas around CAT's factories, and generally throughout the world. Mechanical engineers? high-stakes salespeople? corporate financing managers? They aren't quite so easy to replace, hence why they can successfully demand a bigger cut of the profit.
Earlier in this thread, I asked a simple question: If CAT's factory workers don't think they're getting paid what they're worth, why don't they go work somewhere else? It's interesting how so many in this thread vilify CAT's senior management for "exploiting" their factory workers by daring to freeze their pay, yet these "champions of labor" seem to be doing their damnedest to avoid answering that very simple question.