I think that's the idea. Heroes "do it for free". You don't see superman getting extra money from saving people. He holds a job. Same with Spiderman. Even Link has to pay rupees for his gear to save the world.
So businesses have figured out if they give you the praise of being a hero, they don't have to pay you. Just like a superhero would never ask for money, you shouldn't either, hero.
No, no, no, you misunderstood. Essential doesn't mean highly paid. They are the suckers who are left doing the dirty work that keeps high society moving but of course they'll get the lowest possible wage if they can be replaced easily.
it would be better to just raise the minimum wage to a living wage and then regulate housing prices. And then tie the minimum wage to the cost of living.
Are we really going to have this discussion again?
Skill is a measure of the amount of worker's expertise, specialization, wages, and supervisory capacity. Skilled workers are generally more trained, higher paid, and have more responsibilities than unskilled workers.
So you're saying middle managers are skilled workers? What is their skill? Because as far as I can tell, their main tasks are "motivating the work force" and "keeping everyone on track," and unless they all have degrees in psychology, I don't think that's something they're likely to have any sort of special skill in, do you?
When the term "essential worker" was coined, it made many of the people it applied to feel flattered. They were considered essential! However this is a misunderstanding of what a capitalist is saying. The term "essential" doesn't actually refer to the worker. They consider the work essential. It is very important that those jobs are carried out. The worker that does it though is irrelevant, and considered fungible.
You know how corporations have a department called "Human Resources?" That's exactly the mindset. Your job is essential, but you are expendable.
What's the point of defending the existence of a bullshit job like that? A skill is something you can learn, can improve, and can be adapted.
None of that applies to a "greeter". Of course it's a subjective notion: a craft that takes ten years to master is skilled, a job that has you productive within a single day doesn't. "skill" is a gradient, so the label "unskilled" is in itself meaningless.
"You're denouncing an exploitative system, therefore you must be bad with people."
What's even the relationship between my previous comment and mine? Even for an ad hominem it's incredibly weak. Anyway, if you believe having people skills equals cosying up, you'd be right, I'm not good at this.
"skill" is a gradient, so the label "unskilled" is in itself meaningless.
You know what else is a gradient? Size. Does that make terms like "big" and "small" meaningless? Just about everything in this universe exists on a spectrum.
Indeed has a list of 15 jobs for people with no skills. I stopped reading at job #3 because they are completely ignoring the skills required of factory workers and dog walkers. Apparently people skills don't count, neither does mechanical proficiency.
It’s also hot as hell with the sun beating down on you all day. Fuck that, being a sparky means I come in after the walls and roof are up but roofers work their asses off.
You can criticize the way we name things, but the fact remains that the distinction between "skilled" and "unskilled" labour is a useful one and will continue to exist regardless of what you decide to call it. I feel like this comment is just a distraction from the real problem you intend to draw attention to, which I'm guessing is low wages.
No, I'm criticising the fact that the term devalues both the labour put in by people, as well as devaluing the people themselves. You can't deny that we as a society look down at certain jobs, both in terms of the jobs being unsavoury (handling refuse, cleaning, etc.).
I'm a software developer, my roomie is a truck driver. We don't get the same reactions when we introduce ourselves and talk about our jobs. We don't have the same wages or working conditions either. I have a fixed, yet relaxed schedule, and I can plonk around with my job more or less any time I feel like it. My roomie went to bed at eight today because he has to get up at three, by the time I get up he'll have worked for four hours. He most likely won't be home until five, about the time I close my laptop and start cooking, provided I haven't already started that. Somehow I'm paid more. I'm perceived as more intelligent, and my work is held in higher regard, despite the fact that business grind to a halt and people go without food if my roomie doesn't do his job. He doesn't "just" drive from point A to point B, just like I don't "just" stare at a monitor all day.
I see what you mean with certain jobs being perceived negatively. Maybe the messaging should be about the value of "unskilled" labour/labourers rather than saying that there's no such thing as "unskilled" labour? To me, the latter implies that there's nothing distinguishing "skilled" and "unskilled" labour. The only people who would understand what you're really trying to say are those who are part of your circle spreading the "message", and thus it only serves the purpose of saying "I'm on team X! Anyone else?"
No, when I say “unskilled labour isn’t a thing” that’s also precisely what I mean. The term indicates that you do not require any sort of skill before doing it; a literal infant could do it. As far as I am aware, no such labour actually exists.
Are we saying that certain labour requires formal education? Why wouldn’t we simply use a term reflecting that, in that case? I don’t have any formal education in software development, I am entirely autodidact. A profession born from too much free time and not enough friends. Now I’m a professional dev, making software that is core to operations to one of the biggest (in terms of GDP) corporations in my country.
Is my job then unskilled labour, or am I an unskilled labourer performing skilled labour? In which case, can the labour really be that skilled if an unskilled labourer can do it? If say a taxi driver helps deliver a baby, does that make obstetrics a non-skilled profession, or is it just the birthing part that doesn’t require skill? For that matter, my roomie did actually go through a one year course before he got his trucking license, does that make it a skilled profession?
It’s a nonsense term. Unskilled labour isn’t a thing; all labour require a measure of skill.
Everything requires skills, yes. Some skills take longer to acquire. It's the difference between taking a random adult on the street and teaching them to perform a job within a week versus a year or more. Whether or not you're self taught doesn't change the fact that it didn't take you a week to learn to code and it's not something that's part of a standard curriculum most adults would've gone through.
If you don't think "unskilled" reflects this distinction properly, suggestions for alternatives are welcome. But I still think this is a distraction from the main problem.
Sorry, but a shovel is unskilled labour. A forklift driver is absolutely not. In the sense that you quite literally need prior qualifications in order to do it, it's not something any basically functioning adult can do with on-the-job training.
Using the definition provided by @damnedfurry (appearing as "ObjectivityIncarnate"), yes, they meet that definition. Forklift drivers are not trained on the job, they need a specific licence. That makes it not unskilled labour.
Some clown from an insurance company making asinine rules doesn't make operating a forklift skilled. Person that can't figure out how to work a forklift by themselves in 4 minutes is literally retarded, and severely.
You're equivocating "skilled" in the same way the OP of this comment chain was to "unskilled". You're doing the equivalent of saying "a feather can't be dark, because feathers are light." Stop playing stupid semantic games.
In the context of labor metrics, "skilled" and "unskilled" are not descriptors of overall difficulty. I've already posted a reminder of what the terms mean in this context above your comment, so there's no excuse.
lol, you gave me the mental image of someone opening the dictionary to look up a word, seeing its definition, then scoffing as you point at it, saying "That's horseshit!"
These the same dictionaries carry identical definitions for "irregardless" and "regardless"? Anyways defining fork and spoon operators as "skilled" is literally horseshit, I don't care about your labored justifications.
It will continue to exist because it's useful for the ruling class.
Terms like "unskilled labor" help the media do their job, which is helping capital convince the masses that the "unskilled laborers" are speaking above their station when asking for a livible wage.
It's "burger flippers" for people who want to call themselves more politically literate. Language currently used to minimize and undermine.
It will definitely continue to exist, but acting like there aren't connotations here or that they aren't directly related to the "real problem of low wages" is wack
They also exist because there's important differences to the jobs. For example, in how you hire. If you're looking for "unskilled" workers, you can cast a wide net with the job ad and hit mostly the relevant audience. You can go up to anyone looking for a job and offer them said job. If you need a bigger pool of people to hire from, you can make changes that have almost immediate impact (e.g. increasing benefits, working conditions, marketing). For "skilled" labour, there's fewer people in the pool to hire from, so you want to go directly to where they're being trained (e.g. job fairs at universities or trade schools), and if you need to increase the pool you can hire from, that has delayed effects since you need to wait for people to go through their training.
I was not aware of the negative connotation though, so I'll keep that in mind. I don't think changing the word itself is going to do anything about that though. Connotation will follow unless you change people's attitudes towards these jobs. I don't know how you would do that though. Any ideas?
I don't think so, having been in both sides of the coin, a worker and a manager, there's a skill to dealing with people especially those who think they're better them what they are.
Along with dealing with all the internal interpsonal issues you have outside forces you need to deal with to ensure that those you manage have a job next week
Unskilled is the term they use to replace underpaid. So I think it is important to stop using it so people know what's really happening. Unskilled implies that they don't deserve a lot of money but that's not the case at all.
This is something only doofuses playing semantic games say.
"Unskilled labor" is a term with an established definition: it's work that you don't need special schooling or training beforehand to be qualified to be hired to do, and also generally means that someone who is hired to do it can be fully trained to do the work to a satisfactory level within a month.
I work a job that can be taught to most people. Although you do need to be strong and be ok with a lot of travel. General dexterity and familiarity with hand tools helps immensely. I am also a college dropout. I have had very few of my trainees fail to last at least a year. I am so much, almost infinitely better at it than a new hire though.
The other part of my argument here is I coordinate constantly with people who have multiple certifications all the way up to advanced degrees. Every single one of them I've spoken to about it says that their work is roughly 90% learned on the job. To me this makes the certifications and degrees they earned 90% worthless, except that education got their foot in the door to actually learn the job.
We need an overhaul in the way we think about qualifications for jobs. I think college education is a wonderful thing that generally creates a more well rounded individual, and I am grateful that I was able to spend a few years doing it. But pushing people into massive debt so they have a chance to get their foot in the door for a better paycheck is fucking insane.
Every single one of them I've spoken to about it says that their work is roughly 90% learned on the job. To me this makes the certifications and degrees they earned 90% worthless
This is not sound logic. Those certifications and degrees are the baseline, foundational knowledge that make it possible for the job-specific knowledge to be learned.
To use a simple analogy, you can't do calculus if you don't know arithmetic first. But in a calculus class, you learn 'on the job' all-new stuff. That doesn't mean the 'certification' of knowing arithmetic is worthless--without knowing arithmetic, it would be impossible for you to learn or do any calculus.
We need an overhaul in the way we think about qualifications for jobs.
This is a self-solving problem. If an employer puts too many or the wrong prerequisites 'in front' of a job that doesn't actually need them, they will deprive themselves of X% of actually-qualified talent and the business will be worse off, versus employers who place only the appropriate (which in some cases, can easily be 'none') prerequisite(s) that are actually required for the work.
A recent Unlearning Economics Live video had Cahal mentioning that it was pretty easy to identify essential workers, and if that's the case we should earmark housing for those workers in the relevant areas. If it's been so easy to classify them, there should probably be other similar accomodations (eg tax breaks) from a payment perspective.
Not the same thing. An essential worker was somebody doing a job needed for society to continue. That includes both skilled (years of training) jobs and unskilled (a week or two at most before you can do it) jobs.
People who feed you are doing grunt work? People who take your garbage away too? You gave just dismissed two groups of people whose jobs are vital to your wellbeing.
The problem with your thinking is it’s actually not thinking at all.
Yes. People who do jobs that take minimal training and who could be replaced in a week are doing grunt work. That's the difference between skilled and unskilled. Do you need to go through years of training to do your job? Congratulations, you're not as replaceable as the guy who was trained in 2 days by a high school dropout.
Cool. So if everyone Learns To Code because that's the only way to deserve an actual living, who does the essential but unskilled jobs then? Oh I get it, you're advocating for labour immigration. Cool.
So you want labour shortages (and/or strikes because that's the other way to effect a supply shortage) for a while to hurt the economy before The Market finds a way to pay the people it wants to consume their way to infinite growth
Uh, there was a whole family by that name on my street growing up. The dad was I think a finance guy. The mom was some ghoulish silicon valley law botherer.
I'm against genocide, and believe it should be stopped by any means possible as fast as possible, and the lives of those committing it should not be considered. They don't necessarily all need to die, but enough of them need to die to stop it, and their lives are beneath consideration. I think 'hamas' are dicks who mostly don't matter. They killed a handful of genocidal monsters, but they treat queer people like shit, so it's about break-even morally. Doubt we'd get along.
Why are you bringing shit from other threads in here?
You don't know what you're even defending, and then when called out for it you say I'm genocidal, lol. Really proved my point there for me, you think you know more than you do
Although, what does a corporate lawyer, wall street gambler, CEO, or congressman really contribute to society? Except stimulating the therapy industry with all the kids they fuck?
They are negative contributors because they hoard money. Other people actually contribute to the economy by spending money.
Oh, yeah, and every 10 years the markets crash because they've managed to repeal banking regulations or have accumulated too much risk to survive a significant downturn. Then the federal government bails them out?
No that money needs to go to coke addled morons with degrees in cognitive dissonance who spend their days fucking children and gambling in ways that can crash the global economy. Also ceo's that make the worst possible decisions.
Was McDonald's and Starbucks really necessary for society to continue? And if it is: They should definitely be paid a lot more just for that, let alone the minimum necessary to survive (which they don't get).
Maybe if, in the days of being able to look up almost literally any recipe on planet earth, as well as endless catalogues of cooking tutorials, a person cannot manage to mangle together enough food to not starve to death without McDonald's sustaining them, then this person is simply taking their Darwin award?
