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submitted 2 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/46747422

Archive article: https://archive.ph/YX7on

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[-] [email protected] 8 points 1 day ago

When people say it's about Money, specifically, it is about Profit. They are making obscene profits, and they can't sacrifice one single penny of it; in fact, they have to have even more of it. They can't continue to exist without a constant stream of ever increasing profits, to hear them tell it.

The Federal Minimum Wage has been increased only twice since 1997 for a total of $2.10. It has been at $7.25 since 2009. When people demand an increase in the minimum wage, there are only two outcomes expected from it - higher prices, or lost jobs, and it is always presented as if those are the ONLY two options available. It never occurs to anyone to perhaps demand that corporations should MAKE LESS PROFIT.

That profit should go back to the workers who actually EARNED that profit through their sweat equity. The argument that they already earn enough doesn't wash when employed people are living in their cars as a housing choice. Push those sorts of lifestyle compromises long enough, and they become normalized. Someday soon, we'll have celebrities on TV talk shows going on about how they lived in their car for the first few years they were in town, and it was AWESOME!

Since Covid, Transnational Corporations and their Sociopathic Oligarch owners have reset the costs of living in America, raising prices on everything, without any adjustment on the compensation for labor side.

We've been screwed since Congress redrew the Tax Code in 1974, which baked Trickle Down Economics into the tax code. Ever since then, more and more money is transferred from the middle/working classes to the wealthy. They've been stealing from us for decades, and they just want to keep doing it.

The median salary of $43K in 1975 has increased to only $50K today, while they would have been making $92K if the tax code hadn't been steadily re-written to enrich the wealthy at the cost of the middle class and poor.

In that same time period, the mean income for the top 1% went from $289K to $1.384 million, while they would have been making $630K under the old tax codes.

Thats a 17.4% increase in the lower median, and an increase of 321.6% in the 1% median. Clearly there has been an upwards distribution of wealth at the expense of the middle class since the tax codes started to be re-written in 1974 to favor the top economic tier.

Read more about it :

New York Mag: http://nymag.com/intelligencer/amp/2020/09/rand-study-how-high-is-inequality-us.html

Fast Money: https://www.fastcompany.com/90550015/we-were-shocked-rand-study-uncovers-massive-income-shift-to-the-top-1

[-] [email protected] 23 points 1 day ago

I’m not a big financial expert and I haven’t read the article but the answer is most likely: the pay is shit.

[-] [email protected] 13 points 1 day ago

1- Pay better 2- improve conditions 3-promote unions 4- add benefits 5- profit

This may seem like a humorous comment, but it isn't. Source: Europe

[-] [email protected] 7 points 1 day ago

I bet the reason is simple $$$$$$ pay people money and watch how we work.

[-] [email protected] 15 points 1 day ago

dumb motherfuckers would honestly benefit if their workers unionized

[-] [email protected] 93 points 2 days ago

Without reading I can give a most likely answer: money. If the job is exhausting and dangerous but pays a tenth of what middle management makes, which is a tenth of what the CEO makes, then I think we might have the reason.

[-] [email protected] 31 points 2 days ago

That's a real posting from a large mfg.

[-] [email protected] 2 points 7 hours ago

Yeah, let's parse that out in real terms:

Need to have completed trade school or 2 years of apprenticeship, neither of which they are willing to pay for.

12 hour days, including many weekends.

SAP experience for an electrician?

Extreme physical danger from being an electrician, especially in a commercial environment that is more likely to have high voltage work.

Pay tops out at $67k...

Let's repeat: pay tops out at $67k for an experienced person working a dangerous job with long hours and weekends. I'm shocked they are having trouble finding people!!

[-] [email protected] 18 points 2 days ago

Work 12 hour days AND every other weekend for poverty wages? Wow sign me up!

[-] [email protected] 15 points 2 days ago

I live in a rural area outside of a small town in the southern USA. The local electrician, basically the guy almost everybody calls if they need basic residential electrical work, earns almost twice the high end of what that job listing is paying. Granted, he's basically on call 7 days a week and I'm sure his job isn't always unicorn farts and leprechaun rainbows, but he's his own boss and works his own hours.

[-] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago

Just having a job where you can say No to unreasonable demands makes life a lot easier. That's probably the best benefit of being self-employed - nobody forcing you to do stuff you hate.

[-] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

In oregon an electrician makes $100k/yr, a controls electrician $160k, and an electrical engineer 200-300k.

[-] [email protected] 28 points 2 days ago

Was gonna say, I went to college to get a good job that I hate.
If a manufacturer wants to pay me the same to sit on an assembly line I would give it real consideration.

As always the "nobody wants to work" crowd conveniently neglect to tell us the wages

[-] [email protected] 4 points 2 days ago

You can make good money in skilled trades which would require some training. Could be weeks, months of training.

[-] [email protected] 22 points 2 days ago

My friend just became a locksmith. It has opened a lot of doors for him.

[-] [email protected] 4 points 2 days ago

my brother is a plumber. he's rolling in it now.

[-] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago

Consider being an electrician: you’d be shocked

[-] [email protected] 10 points 2 days ago

You can make good money in skilled trades if you are in a union. Also the union trains you.

[-] [email protected] 9 points 2 days ago

You pay a lot for that training, and typically the trades guys at a factory only make about 10-20% more than the line workers. The only money to be made in trades is owning your own firm

[-] [email protected] 36 points 2 days ago

The article doesn't actually cite compensation as an issue. The actual issue is lack of skilled talent, which is due to a couple of things including

  • These jobs require relevant skills; can't just hire someone off the street as you can in the service industry.
  • The US spent ages telling people that they were idiots if they didn't go to college, which pushed people away from trade skills
  • The Trump administration made aggressive cuts to training programs for blue-collar workers
[-] [email protected] 28 points 2 days ago

On the job training. Yes, it takes time and money but it is the obvious solution.

[-] [email protected] 15 points 2 days ago

Any kind of training even in office jobs has been non-existent for my whole career. Whenever I've started a new job I'm always just thrown in the deep end by a manager that doesn't know how to do the job they are managing

[-] [email protected] 4 points 2 days ago

That's not why we made business school.

[-] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago

On the job training. Yes, it takes time and money but it is the obvious solution.

A challenge facing many white collar jobs is that the entry level jobs are being automated away. There is no job for them to train on. The floor starts at Intermediate skill level and advances quickly to senior. The grunt work that needed to get done used to be handed to juniors. It wasn't very difficult, and it was low risk if they made mistakes. It was perfect entry work that was both necessary in that it served a productive purpose, but also allowed someone to get in the door and start working in a particular field. Technology and automation are now doing that same grunt work, so the entry level jobs are drying up and not being replaced. Its going to be a massive problem in a decade or two if the Intermediate and Senior positions are still needed and those that are in those jobs now retire or die off. This assume that the Intermediate and Senior positions don't also get automated away.

I'm not closely involved in trade jobs, but I wonder if a version of this is happening there too. One example I can think of is jobs like twisting rebar tie wire by hand for concrete work isn't technically difficult, but it is time consuming and uncomfortable.

Here's how its done by hand

However, now there are now robots that can do this work so much faster, and they don't eat, sleep, go to the bathroom, or get injured.

Here's a robot that can do it

Is this happening in other entry level trade jobs? Will there be nowhere to train on the job?

[-] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago

It doesn't matter what has been defined as entry level - they can train for any job they need if they are willing to pay and take the time.

But I see what you are saying. It's different and they will have to adapt.

[-] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago

But I see what you are saying. It’s different and they will have to adapt.

The organization adapting may mean they simply exit that line of business if the costs/risks of training for the required staff it too high.

[-] [email protected] 22 points 2 days ago

There's not enough skilled talent because the jobs are not paying enough when considering the physical risk and pain involved compared to what the execs make. I grew up surrounded by factory workers who made an OK salary in Indiana, enough to have a small house and 2 cars, but who always seemed to be on the verge of a strike. Constantly fighting with management to get basic benefits and decent pay, then having their bodies wrecked after years of a hard job. It was a thankless, hard job that was only made palatable by the wages and benefits unions had to constantly fight for. It's no wonder young people look at that life and decide it isn't worth all the specialized training to spend your life being dehumanized by the corporations who are making so much more money than you. At least in the skilled trades like construction and electrical you can go it alone and get most of the money for yourself. Not much of an option for that for factory workers.

[-] [email protected] 15 points 2 days ago

And the compensation doesn't cover the costs of getting the skills yourself. American business got what it paid for - nothing.

[-] [email protected] 10 points 2 days ago

The Trump administration made aggressive cuts to training programs for blue-collar workers

He didn't do it for the right reason, but it also should be the wealthy capitalists who pay for training, as well as excellent compensation for the job. Any other way is subsidizing wealthy welfare queens. Nope on that and let's use precise language that makes it clear who subsidizes who. The wealthy are the greedy, lazy takers, not our regular joes and janes.

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[-] [email protected] 17 points 2 days ago

CEOs make several hundred times the average worker wage, including middle management.

[-] [email protected] 41 points 2 days ago

They don't want to train anyone. Same story as always. They won't invest in their workers.

[-] [email protected] 6 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Investing in workers cuts into profit for the next quarter

[-] [email protected] 32 points 2 days ago

Without reading, I'm just going to guess most of it has to do with low wages.

[-] [email protected] 18 points 2 days ago

They've tried nothing and they're all out of ideas.

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this post was submitted on 24 Jun 2025
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