I do deliveries to some buildings that still have freight elevator operators, in a USA city.

I don't know what they are paid, but it is worth every penny for them to manage the elevators. There is not enough "supply" of freight elevator in most tall buildings, so these operators distribute the capacity to the dozens / hundreds of people needing to use the elevator each day.

$50k per year is a bargain for all the time they save for the thousands of deliveries and other uses each year.

If you have experience in this area, then I should not say this: it's easy to criticize some work as useless when one is totally ignorant of the problem space. But buildings don't hire these operators as a charity.