this post was submitted on 26 Jun 2023
79 points (100.0% liked)
World News
22086 readers
56 users here now
Breaking news from around the world.
News that is American but has an international facet may also be posted here.
Guidelines for submissions:
- Where possible, post the original source of information.
- If there is a paywall, you can use alternative sources or provide an archive.today, 12ft.io, etc. link in the body.
- Do not editorialize titles. Preserve the original title when possible; edits for clarity are fine.
- Do not post ragebait or shock stories. These will be removed.
- Do not post tabloid or blogspam stories. These will be removed.
- Social media should be a source of last resort.
These guidelines will be enforced on a know-it-when-I-see-it basis.
For US News, see the US News community.
This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
It's not inherently undesirable, but often enough extremely unattractive.
Low pay, bad working condition, no sense of accomplishment, hardly any upwards mobility. Why would I do that, if I have better options?
Here in Germany, people used to take pride (and sometimes still do) in working for VW or Daimler, they had a sense of belonging, pay was good and there was at least a feeling that your company took care of you. That is pretty much gone.
I know a lot of people that work in union manufacturing jobs that have a real sense of pride and feeling of accomplishment about it. Gotta say, having time off, extra money, and voice in how the company treats you probably goes a long way, because some of those same people hated their non-unions jobs before.
Absolutely. But for some reason, capitalism hates if workers are happy, so you have to press them harder and harder.
These jobs you're describing are becoming rarer, and not only in manufacturing. I'm a software developer office drone and I'm financially very well off and have pretty good working conditions, but my work is mostly meaningless, if I'm honest. Not that the product I'm building is useless, far from it, but there's so much that removes me from actually feeling valuable, that I might as well just dig a hole and fill it up again.
Alienation real for sure, I have to fight that my job all the time. One for me is all of pencil pushing signature block owners I have to talk to. Like I hate to say it, but theres gotta be a better use of both our time then them being road blocks on peoples paths to production.
I kind of agree with the lack of career options for factory workers, but in many factory jobs there are several upsides.
For example many places allow you to listen to music/podcasts all day, while you are working. The work itself is often not mentally taxing and it doesn't follow you home when you leave. Also there is no reason not to feel pride in being able to complete relatively complex tasks with care and speed.