Generally I agree. The whole temp agency compensation is another issue. But I can't help but feel that its extremely unfair to ask a bunch of $8 hour workers to give up ideas that can make the company a lot of money when generally speaking the company will be able to sustain itself irrespective of what these people say ( short of doing their day to day rote assembly and testing tasks ). Maybe writing workers a check for a big idea might be absurd but I think its equally absurd not more than the scenario I mentioned in the post. I think the real issue is that the upper manager who is responsible for productivity gains is in a position where he doesn't have any better incentives than the pizza party. This isn't necessarily because he's a good/bad manager, he's probably in a position that doesn't allow for much else. Regardless if its due to the situation he's in or an overall lack of creativity; either way the 'incentives' are kind of mediocre relative to the potential 'big' gains that could be made.

edit I would also like to add that many of the people in the room felt the way I did thus it wasn't just my opinion. I was simply the only one that said anything. In that regard I kind of did the manager a favor allowing him to possibly adjust his approach.