To avoid any claim of 'Avoiding issues', I'll address each paragraph independently.
Well, you're basically at their mercy, and doubly so in these cyclical high-unemployment scenarios that seem to be part and parcel of the capitalist experience. Corporate productivity has gone through the roof over the past three years as workers were laid off using the economy as an excuse, and the existing workers made to work even harder. As a result, corporate profits have skyrocketed, while worker wages have actually decreased. These people are working even harder at their jobs, making their employers even more money, and they're getting paychecks that are even smaller. How is that not exploitation?
You're neglecting the facts that 1: we are not operating in a capitalist system. We are currently operating in a Fascist system, by which the government works in cooperation with Corporations, themselves creations of the government, to control the economy. Without the minimum wage, unemployment would go down, probably to 0 involuntary unemployment, which by itself would give the workers more bargaining power.
You have little or no power to negotiate wages and benefits with a multinational corporation worth billions when you're just a regular guy who needs a job. So you have to take what they offer. And if not them, some other company that works the same way.
Unions would further increase worker bargaining power (labor unions, not trade unions, there is a distinct and important difference) to the point where they are roughly equal to the people hiring them. Added to the fact that without the government to shield them, the CEOs would actually be liable for their company's actions, life starts to look a little better, eh?
And then you have all of this anti-tax, anti-workers rights, anti-minimum wage propaganda floating around, and guess who's responsible for that? The same corporations who are trying to distract the public from the fact that they aren't paying decent wages anymore! Even the dumbest person will realize that his paycheck just doesn't go as far these days, but if you convince them that high taxes are the reason, and you manage to make them forget that taxes have actually been going down for three decades now, he's a lot less likely to start blaming you.
Maybe we're seeing different propaganda. 'cause I keep seeing idiots clamoring for more, higher minimum wages, ignoring the fact that this will inevitably increase unemployment, which will increase the drain on public funds, which will increase taxes, and end up with a smaller check at the end of the day.