Oh, the joy of the marginalist supply and demand theorem!
Here's an excerpt of Alan Greenspan’s Feb. 26, 1997, testimony before the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee:
"The performance of the U.S. economy over the past year has been quite favorable. … Continued low levels of inflation and inflation expectations have been a key support for healthy economic performance. … Atypical restraint on compensation increases has been evident for a few years now, and appears to be mainly the consequence of greater worker insecurity. The willingness of workers in recent years to trade off smaller increases in wages for greater job security seems to be reasonably well documented. The unanswered question is why this insecurity persisted even as the labor market, by all objective measures, tightened considerably."
Could it have more to do with agriculture? during certain times of year you probably didn't have work . waiting for things just grow or thaw. before you can begin plating or harvest?
Tired citizens are not engaged citizens, they don't have the energy to organize and push for their interests.
Workers being less productive is a small price to pay for employers when all your productivity gains go to them anyway.