via
http://ift.tt/2hPEL5Y:
ladytazr:
stupiduglyfatcunt:
czechs-and-holdings:
Can we PLEASE remove the stigma for blue collar work in America?
“You don’t wanna be a garbage collector when you grow up, do you?”
$34,000 a year, no college needed?
God forbid you take an honest job $7,000 above Michigan’s average cost of living line.
“You don’t wanna be a ditch digger.”
Bitch, I was making $15 an hour, post tax, doing exactly that, the fuck is wrong with it? (Other than it was physically exhausting.)
We need to help America, as a whole, understand that college is not, and should not be he only option, and that there is NO SHAME in trade school or even getting a career right out of high school.
I, personally, know plumbers making $80,000+ a year. Better than most 4 year degree workers.
We need plumbers, janitors, truck-drivers, garbage collectors, machinists, to keep this nation running smoothly. And they deserve respect for what they do.
Miss me with your classist bullshit.
And how ironic that physical labor is looked down on but people spend all kinds of money and hours every week in the gym just to get exercise? Like doing moves literally called “farmer’s carry” and shit. I personally want a job that requires moderate physical activity rather than the unhealthy office job.
Over here we call these jobs “skilled labour” rather than “blue collar” although I think nomenclature only makes a small difference. I grew up well-to-do, but certainly not posh, with a construction worker father. His entire qualification consisted of three months as a “lärling” which is what Swedish blue collar workers call an intern. Back then lärlingar were paid for their labour, although not as well as the qualified workers and they were exempt from “ackordet” which was a group reward for high production. Since construction is a project based job and you’re only paid while there’s work, this was an incentive to not slow down the work. Once they could hold their own, lärlingar got paid union wages.
If, like my dad, you were careful about money, you lived off the wage part of your pay and saved the ackordet part for the periods between projects. That way, you could get months off without worrying about money, and get properly rested for the next project.
If, like my dad, you were hard working and part of a sought after team who always finished projects on time - and was in your prime during an unprecedented building boom causing both wages and ackordet bonuses to increase - you never had to live off the saved up ackordet money, which therefore kept piling up. If, like my dad, you had eight years of school, you may or may not have any idea about what to do with all that money. Some of his colleagues did indeed, my dad did not.
My grandfather was also a construction worker but during harder times. Despite being a skilled carpenter he had low wages and long periods of no work, due to being in his prime in a time marred by market crashes, world wars and a strong prejudice against manual labour which caused people to feel they could underpay essential workers, despite needing their labour for their own prosperity. My grandmother was always acutely aware of being married to “only a carpenter” a thing that never crossed my mother’s mind regarding my father, of whose skill and work ethic she was always very proud.
This was the labour seller’s market for a short while in history and my father hit the trade at this very time. We were definitely well off. Six bedroom house with large garden, three cars (mom’s, dad’s and the old Buick Charger dad worked on as a hobby on weekends) ski gear for the whole family, multiple ski holidays and skiing daytrips in winter, monthlong summer holidays, seeing all of Sweden by caravan. (By comparison, me and my university degree rent a two bedroom house with a stamp size garden and I have not been able to afford a holiday ever, despite having been in full time work since I left uni. And I’m one of the lucky ones. I can afford my bills.)
Obviously, this must have been bad times for contracting firms and construction companies, right? We, no they were booming. And so were all the trades selling things a cadre of minted blue-collar people might want. In fact, our society as a whole was doing very, very well.
The major difference between their vastly different experience of the same job. And the difference between my well heeled childhood and my nose-just-over-water-despite-high-education-and-a-skilled-whitecollar-job adulthood. And the difference between my dad’s generation and the “lärlingar” he trained (my brother preferred another path) is, apart from market changes, explained very simply in two terms: Social Democracy and Strong Unions.
Never forget that when you see the right demonising unions. Never forget that to them, your suffering is ideology. To them, the widening social divides is ideology. Because they’d rather be worse off than they could be, as long as the amount by which they are better off than you increases. They’d rather be worse off than they could be, to keep you even worse off. Because they want servants.
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