Old fashioned collectivism

I just had a very interesting lunch. We discussed the core of the central wage negotiations between the unions and the employers' counterparts - that will be encompassing more people than ever this spring.

Is it not very old fashioned to define strict wages for huge clusters of people, solely dependent on some industry category that they were tagged with?


Without any concern of the quality of the job that they perform.
Without any recognition of them as individuals with various degrees of enthusiasm and contribution to cultural aspects of the organization they belong to.
Without even thinking about the relationships they bring to company or the processes they build that can have long lasting value for their companies in many years to come.

In essence - shouldn't salaries be set related to each individual’s contribution to the value creation of their firm? I.e. to building intellectual capital.

You tell me.