It absolutely is. Workers getting paid more actually spend that money. If you pay more dividends to the Saudi wealth fund or even a local billionaire the economy doesn’t grow as much of that.
Yeah, every study I've seen about economic stimulus indicates it's really, really hard to do better than "give ordinary people more money". That's what you do if you're serious about giving the economy a kick in the ass (and politics and/or bribery don't get in the way). Which makes sense.
Shifting pie can be very useful. Consider the situation: One super rich gets 100 million and 100 ordinary people get 100k. The super rich has an upper limit for expenditure because he is still a human being. However if all 100 ordinary people get extra 10k which is paltry, they will probably spend it all to boost economy.
No, we'll just get one fewer super yacht and 100 more nice cars (or whatever). It's not an increase in productivity.
Regardless, that's not really the point. The point is that if the unions want sick days it's perfectly within their capability to provide it since their salaries are quite high.
