Ethics in real life at work

I've been working as a server at restaurants for about 4 years now. I have noticed that there is a great deal of favoritism in this type of work, coming to the schedules, who gets what section, etc. Granted, before i started working in the restaurant industry, I did have other jobs where favoritism was noticeable if looked at, but not just plain obvious as it is in the restaurant industry, does favoritism take place in all industries of the market? Is there anything we can do to make it stop? On top of that, my current employer(I won't say where, haha) does things and takes actions that are extremely unprofessional, and in my opinion very unethical. Examples are managers talking to staff about how they wish they could "fire his ass" or not scheduling someone for a whole week based on hearsay, causing them to lose hundreds of dollars that could have been made(especially in myrtle beach in the middle of summer). The East Coast VP-who was recently promoted to this title-lacks people skills completely, how does someone get a job with that title when they lack the skill thats the most essential to success in the service industry? Makes you wonder whats going on behind the scenes and what, if anything, can be done to change this type of behavior.