saw a family member's check today

[GrimJack]

eh. Not really that interested. I'll never be in the position to do that kind of work, and I'll never be in the position to hire someone for that kind of work, so no skin off my back if some company will pay someone $28/hour to do the same thing hundreds of times in a day and consider it skilled labor. Good for that worker. Take what you can get. Sorry for the company who has to pay it, though.

Of course my only contact with it has been walking through an airplane manufacturing plant on the way to my office and watching Discover channel or "how its made" or something other show like that. Making fuselages out of composite material is definitely a skill. Welding is a skill. Painting is a skill. Being a mechanic is a skill. Lining up pre-made parts together and putting a nut on a bolt is not a skill. Riveting is not a skill. Well, maybe it is a skill...I just question having to pay $28 an hour for something that easy to learn. Just my opinion. Sorry it offended you.

I'm not saying it isn't hard work, it isn't hard on your body, it isn't hot, it isn't cold in the winter, you don't pinch your fingers, it isn't dangerous, etc., btw. I'm sure it can be brutally difficult. But I don't confuse a job that is hard on the workers with a job that requires skilled labor.

I looked around for some video of line work and came up with this - not exactly what I wanted but what the hey!

Most people think the jobs they do are worth every penny they are paid but those others are overpaid for what they do - this is mostly because of personal biases seldom because of any actual knowledge of what is involved.

Of course, i may misunderstand what you mean by 'skilled labor'.

[inneedofhelp]

I think that it is a bit too easy to try and scapegoat skilled labor. Some of you seem quick to judge him, but I wish you could see that is the intention of all of this....make the scapegoat the big unions, when in reality, it is the management that is the problem. Many of you may have ancestors or family members who worked in jobs and were unprotected and abused and taken advantage of. the creation of a union was to help protect against those abuses.

I am not upset at laborers---I don't get jealous of carpenters or construction workers who earn more than I do, even with my degree, because i know the job they do is physical, and a heckuva lot more difficult physically than sitting behind a desk.

the management is the problem. the management created product that no one wants. it is not the unions fault for the decline in the auto industry.

I don't agree with all of the tactics of the various unions (I am really against the BART union, right now for their little recent antics). But I know that they aren't the scapegoats that so many are trying to make them out to be.

Please, do not be misled......

[inneedofhelp]

I still have problems with the basic concept that $53,000 is too much pay for an assembly line worker. Then you bring in nurse - a quick check tells me that there are at least 30 categories under the rubric 'nurse' and most of them get paid more that 53k per year after 14 years.

You are making a false choice error, an error in logic, possibly a strawman error. You elevate one career and denigrate another because you think very little of what they do (or the person doing it). Also, unless the guy showed you his paystub, you are also a snoop.

good post. And you are right, depending upon the level of training of a nurse (NP, FNP, RN, not to forget those that are able to travel the world AND get their lodging paid for) makes easily more than 53k a year.

[cptacek]

I found a video of some skilled assembly line workers:
CAR ASSEMBLY LINE
lol. just kidding! don't take me to task on this...I'm looking!

[cptacek]

I think we are coming at this argument from two fundamentally different points of view.

My view is that a business is in business to make money. The point of hiring people is so those people will do work that will make the business money. They want to pay (actual $ + benefits) the least amount to that person they can get away with but still get the work done at an acceptable level, quality wise (the business, or the market, or government regulations, decides the acceptable level of quality). If one person will do the work for $28 / hour, but someone else will do the work for $25 / hour, and the quality of work is the same, the business will want to pay the lower rate, regardless of how many years the person doing $28 / hour has been there. I don't see anything wrong with that. I think that if the person that has been there for that long can be replaced by a new person who will work for less, either the person who has been there longer needs to accept less or move into a job that he can't be replaced at.

My take on your position is that because the first person has been at the job for a certain number of years, they deserve to make more, even if the business can hire someone to do the same job, same quality, for less money.

Look, I used to make $30,000 more than I am right now. The simple fact is that employers around here don't pay as much as where I was, and employers around here don't have as much use for the type of skills I have. At first I remedied that by working where the high paying jobs were. After I got laid off, I took the job around here. Facts are facts. I would like to make more, but I there aren't many businesses competing for my set of skills, so the salary is lower. But, hopefully, I am making a positive impact to the bottom line of the company that did hire me, and hopefully they see that and give me a raise when that time comes around. They have to weigh if they will pay me more to keep me happy or if I will bail on them the first time a better paying salary comes around. I am selling them my skill. If they have use for the skill, they will pay, if not, they won't.

[inneedofhelp]

"Hopefully" doesn't always help the person that devoted most of their life and their body to an industry that is ill-managed.

Again, blaming the worker for earning a decent wage is just a common scapegoating attempt to ignore the true faults of the management.

Some can earn $30,000 less and still make it, but the worker now earning $23,000 and feeding a family of 4, is barely above the poverty levels.

[hawkster]

No offense but come on.

The post comes off as though the person does not deserve the $$ per hour they get. It's good wage but given the economy today how secure do you think they feel right now.

[cptacek]

inneedofhelp...we aren't talking about someone making $23,000 a year, with 4 kids (which, so? If you have kids, you "deserve" to make more at your job? what does that have to do with anything?). The original post was about someone making $53,000 a year, according to GrimJack. I rounded down...my "pay cut" was $34,000 a year, and now I'm making $60,000, just $7000 more than that factory worker. At the job I was laid off from, I understand their reasoning...they were paying me Dallas wages in Wichita, KS. I was making more than all the non-managers in the department. Part of the reason they laid me off (I'm guessing) was because if they laid me off, they could keep probably 2 others, and they decided those 2 could keep the department running on a skeleton-crew budget better than I could, since I was doing software customizations that would enhance the productivity, but probably wasn't the right thing to do on a skeleton-crew. That, and my boss was a b*tch. But I digress.

I don't understand why you think I am blaming the worker. In my first post, I said "good on him." If you can get it, get it. I am questioning the mentality that because someone "devoted his life to an industry" they should get paid more. What is it about my second paragraph in my last post that you disagree with?

hawkster, I reject the notion that anyone "deserves" the $$ per hour they get.

[ActYourWage]

you make me want to vomit.

Ha, something about this post just made me laugh out loud.

[inneedofhelp]

inneedofhelp...we aren't talking about someone making $23,000 a year, with 4 kids (which, so? If you have kids, you "deserve" to make more at your job? what does that have to do with anything?). The original post was about someone making $53,000 a year, according to GrimJack. I rounded down...my "pay cut" was $34,000 a year, and now I'm making $60,000, just $7000 more than that factory worker. At the job I was laid off from, I understand their reasoning...they were paying me Dallas wages in Wichita, KS. I was making more than all the non-managers in the department. Part of the reason they laid me off (I'm guessing) was because if they laid me off, they could keep probably 2 others, and they decided those 2 could keep the department running on a skeleton-crew budget better than I could, since I was doing software customizations that would enhance the productivity, but probably wasn't the right thing to do on a skeleton-crew. That, and my boss was a b*tch. But I digress.

I don't understand why you think I am blaming the worker. In my first post, I said "good on him." If you can get it, get it. I am questioning the mentality that because someone "devoted his life to an industry" they should get paid more. What is it about my second paragraph in my last post that you disagree with?

hawkster, I reject the notion that anyone "deserves" the $$ per hour they get.

I never said that someone DESERVES more money because they have children.

However, I do think that it is incorrect to try and blame the unions. I also think that YES, you devote your life to a company, then there should be cost of living increases (i.e., raises). Some people have this mentality of being more for the machine, than for the people that run the machine.

I also dislike the premise of this thread in that somehow the money earned by the laborer is not appropriate based upon their profession---seems a bit classist and judgemental. And this is coming from a white collar person with a degree, who works long hours and is pro-union in most instances.

[mom-from-missouri]

I am happy to see people make a good living. However, it is a nice wage for "unskilled" labor. Maybe a little too nice. Well, it seems those good ol days are coming to an end as we can see those jobs going away.

It is skilled. He would have been trained and tested on his job duty.

Can you go in off he street with no training and do his job?? Most likely not. If you could, you would be building your own car along with everyone else.

After 14 years on the same job he would have deserved what he is getting, I should think.

Many of the nurses around here make around $30 an hour. Some who make less (such as my girlfriend) are those who had tution paid assistance from her employeer and has a contract to take less for the first 3 years. She only makes $27 an hour right now.

[cptacek]

Again, blaming the worker for earning a decent wage is just a common scapegoating attempt to ignore the true faults of the management.

However, I do think that it is incorrect to try and blame the unions.

First you say I am blaming the worker. Now you say I am blaming the union. Which is it?

I also dislike the premise of this thread in that somehow the money earned by the laborer is not appropriate based upon their profession---seems a bit classist and judgemental.

I don't know where I said that. I never said anything about a particular industry. I have been consistently saying that when you are working, you are selling your skillset. If the skillset is in demand, you get paid more, if it is not in demand, you get paid less.

And you haven't told me yet what it is about my previous post you disagree with.

[inneedofhelp]

First you say I am blaming the worker. Now you say I am blaming the union. Which is it?


I don't know where I said that. I never said anything about a particular industry. I have been consistently saying that when you are working, you are selling your skillset. If the skillset is in demand, you get paid more, if it is not in demand, you get paid less.

And you haven't told me yet what it is about my previous post you disagree with.

cptacek--my comments are directed at the topic of this post, not necessarily to your personal opinions, which is potentially why you seem confused by my comments.

[inneedofhelp]

It would help if many on this thread who do not have experience with manufacturing jobs, such as autoworkers, assemblylinespersons, meat processing plants, etc., knew what it is actually like to work in these environments, rather than quickly passing assumptions about how easy it appears to them.

Case in point---many consider working in the meat processing industry to be very unskilled labor--however, it is one of the most dangerous jobs in our country. Also, one of the most underpaid, but that is another topic.

As a long time white collar worker who has dabbled in blue collar work and comes from a long line of blue collar workers, I am very thankful that my job is based upon my thinking abilities and gives me the affordability of being able to work in an office, etc.

Pay the people for their job. See them as people. Realize that the heart of a company or a business is its people. When you come from a place of working for the machine and forgetting about all the workers that help the machine thrive, it really affects your ability to see humanity, creating a somewhat bottom line driven cold approach.

[wnlbutterfly]

If jobs in our society were really based on the skill, training, education, and risk and so on in comparison for the wages they earned, the politicians would make a lot less, and teachers, police, firemen would make a whole lot more. Just my thought.