Are you watching Benjamin like 16 hours a day?

This is a position that I wouldn't expect out of you, because it's kind of anti-republican ideology. Bush tried to do almost the exact opposite of this in 2003 or '04. Essentially he tried to strengthen low-paid workers rights' (the cable worker in your analogy), while weakening anyone over like $60k(the tech engineer) making them automatically exempt iirc. It was widely supported by corporations, as they would save a lot on their higher-paid employees, and would far rather pay time and a half to guy's making $12 an hour rather than higher paid workers. He thought the concessions to the lower-paid employees would make it more palatable to the country as far as opinion. There was a big fight with firefighters and nurses iirc, and eventually it was watered down and somewhat squashed, with only elements of it making it through. (I'm going on memory here, so it may have passed or been shot down totally, but it was certainly watered down)

Really, in a global economy, competing with countries that are simply hungrier than we are, where this is a matter of honor rather than legality, it's an almost impossible problem to solve which results in sometimes overpaid union employees that are hard to demonize, like firefighters, working 2- 24 hour shifts, getting 8 hours ot, which they sleep through half of before waking to eat and lift fending off any legislation that would change it, and others without a unified voice and little options to simply suck it up, or go elsewhere.

It is just the natural evolution of a global economy if you want to be competitive. The temp worker who works 3 years without benefits until the company deems them employable, and eligible for full compensation; the worker of which you are describing who is either tricked, coerced, or simply out of options and is compelled by life to take a job that he's going to live at, are all just the progression of things that have been going on for a long time.

What you are proposing would certainly be shot down by any Republican, and in this economy, probably rightfully so, though I don't often take that position with them, but it's a uniquely bad time. You probably know this, and while you often have shown an open-mindedness on certain conservative ideology that you disagree with, it's usually not in this vein.