At the heart of the coordinated strike by United Auto Workers in Missouri, Ohio and Michigan that started last week is what looks at first like an eye-popping figure: a demand for a 40% raise over the next four years.

But that's not an arbitrary figure; it's roughly equivalent to what the Big Three automakers' CEOs got in increased compensation over the past four years. In that sense, the strike spotlights the fact that America is currently in the throes of a second Gilded Age, in which the rich have gotten astonishingly richer while workers have watched their wages stagnate for decades.

Here's another eye-popping figure: In 1965, an average CEO made roughly 20 times what the average employee made.

Today, that ratio is around 400 to 1.

Carmakers can lament that today's labor shortages are giving the union an outsized advantage in the negotiations, but, bluntly, that's how this much-lauded free enterprise system of ours works: Live by supply and demand, die by supply and demand.

And that means not just the supply of goods but also of labor itself. It helps explain why, in various industries, organized labor has finally started making up some of the generational loses it has endured.

The targeted strikes against Ford, General Motors and Stellantis (maker of Chrysler, Dodge, Ram and Jeep brands) began Thursday at three plants around the country, including the General Motors assembly plant in Wentzville. It's the first time in history the UAW has gone on strike against all the Big Three manufacturers simultaneously.

Limiting the strikes to just three locations is a strategic decision by the union. It leverages the fact that automakers' operations are so intertwined that work stoppages at even one plant affect the whole chain, without forcing the union to drain its strike fund with a broader strike.

But make no mistake: The entire industry — and related industries — will feel this to their core if it turns into an extended strike.

As of Monday, the three companies had offered employees a 20% raise over a four-year contract, with 10% of that up front. The UAW is demanding twice that: a 20% raise up front and four 5% raises over the life of the contract.

As with most negotiations, the final number will almost certainly end up somewhere in the middle. That's between the union and the companies.

But the fact that the companies are bemoaning the union's current demand as something that, if granted, would bankrupt them (and it well might) should give everyone pause about the fact that that's effectively what the corporate bosses have given themselves. What's good for the goose is apparently too good for the gander.

Once it all shakes out, consumers may well end up paying more for automobiles as a result of whatever the union wins in wage hikes and other concessions. This, too, is a reality of supply and demand.

The hard truth is that prices for all kinds of goods and services have long been kept artificially low by stagnant wages that have allowed the corporate class to keep its customers happy with low prices while being generous with their own compensation. This seemingly win-win arrangement has always been a losing one for the workers.

The fact that the scales of that equation are currently tipping toward workers instead of their bosses — not just in the auto industry but throughout the economy as a whole — might finally start to counterbalance what has long been America's sharp tilt toward plutocracy.

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