Why Don't Corporations Give More Pay Raises?

I've been thinking about how our (America's) economy works and why worker pay hasn't been increasing at a faster rate since about 1980. One thing which stands out is that when there was a repatriation of corporate profits held off-shore, most of the money went to stock buybacks. Why buybacks? Because they increase the value of the stock owned by corporate executives. It's a pay raise for them.

Just today I read an article about the corporate giant Apple which recently passed a major marker, becoming the first corporation with capitalization over $1 trillion. Here's a link:

     https://newrepublic.com/article/150382/apples-stock-market-scam

Here are a couple of links from within the Apple article:

     https://www.vox.com/2018/8/2/17639762/stock-buybacks-tax-cuts-trump-republicans

     http://rooseveltinstitute.org/curbing-stock-buybacks-crucial-step/

So, presuming you are NOT an executive of a big company, what should be done to improve the situation (meaning to reduce buybacks and increase normal investments in plant and workers)?

Well, the simple idea of increasing the time period after a buyback before an executive may execute a stock sale may give the market time to adjust and to eliminate some of the advantages to the executives -- thereby reducing the incentive to do a buyback with NO personal gain.

This won't guarantee they won't try to find another way to distribute the money to themselves rather than to improve their company, but if a way cannot be found to force them to distribute held profits to their stockholders via earnings distributions or to reinvest in the company, then it means there is something fundamentally wrong with corporations. They only exist to benefit the people (workers who are paid, consumers who get good products), not just a handful of already rich executives.