That's nonsense, plain and simple. If you believe that I have a bridge to sell you.
Sure, the employer may not have done any work directly to the widget, but they have provided a place to work with the necessary tools...
This is not work.
...and quality control...
This is work.
...as well as providing a steady source of work, regardless of if one particular product fails or succeeds.
This is not work. Furthermore, when the product fails, the employees lose their income.
To the extent that an employer does work, he deserves compensation. To the extent that he merely gives permission for others to work at his direction, he does not.
The employee is offering work in exchange for the above, realizing that while he could work on his own, the capital costs and potential for failure are greater.
The workers could work on their own were it not for the fact that capitalists withhold from them the equipment and resources to do so.
No, it isn't. It's packaged, assembled into a group with other like widgets and then packaged, or compiled into a full device by adding other doodads and whatsits and widgets, and then packaged. It's changed in a myriad of ways, and each of those processes he had to either do himself, buy the machinery to do, or hire someone else to do. There is considerable further processing to be done after the initial production. Don't forget other costs, such as overhead on the factory itself, maintenance on the machines, marketing expenses, etc.
See my response to TheKid.
I think, perhaps, you ascribe too much power to the average Capitalist. The only people who have enough influence in a field to blacklist someone are the "captains of industry", the Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, as it were. Nobody is going to care if you quit say, Trend Micro because they weren't paying you enough, Especially when you offer your talents to their competitor. Additionally, let me remind you that there are always those who do not listen to the "power elite", those willing to bypass Bill Gates saying not to hire him, if his skills are good enough.
Employers never ask for references from potential hires?
Not so. In the free market, there are options for every level of compensation. If his skills are not sufficient to warrant a higher rate of pay, then he is free to seek employment using a different set of skills, or apply those same skills on his own, fashioning widgets from his own raw materials, packaging and marketing them himself, and if his widgets are of a competitive quality with those of the company he left, he can charge a comparable price, gaining the profit for himself.
What if capitalists control all the resources?
Of Course, if he starts selling too many widgets, he may find that he can't keep up with production and have to hire an employee...
Or, he could do the right thing and recruit someone as a partner.