Why are surgeons paid more than brick layers?

[killbotfactory]

100. bargaining power

Not many people can or will go through the training necessary to become a surgeon, and they can demand more pay. They also have a responsibility to do their job with little error, or they can kill somebody. Unique skills that are in demand, and high levels of responsibility, drives pay up.

Most able bodied people can lay bricks with cheap training.

The lack of bargaining power leads to jobs that use common skills, even if physically hard, to be undervalued and to make the people performing that job easily replaced.

Unions are a response to this. By unionizing you can collectively bargain, and it becomes much, much more difficult for an employer to replace you or drive your wages down, because they would have to replace an entire workforce to do so. It prevents employers from exploiting workers (to the harsh degree they have in the past) by increasing the workers bargaining power.

This is why all the "job creators" hate unions, and lobby the government to rescind any and all laws that protect working people. They want cheap labor, no matter what the cost to society or how useful their employees. Their concern is shareholder profit, and their bonuses, not the workers and their wellbeing.