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If I didn't know better, I'd almost swear that King Mike was laughing at the working person.
Here's a guy who is a leading figure in the world of modern free trade capitalism...the folks who gave you NAFTA, outsourcing, offshoring and globalization.
In the late 70s and 80s and 90s they wrecked American industry and sent all the work to China. Then they said "get off your asses, lazy American workers, and get an education! You can't compete in the global market without a college degree!"
How many Tom Friedman columns did we read with this message?
Now the message has filtered down to the average person and "everyone knows" that without an education, you're doomed in todays world. Information society! Post-industrial! Everyone is going to be a website designer or a software programmer, "adding value" in cyberspace!
Then, wait for it, they started outsourcing all the white collar work, to hungry and ambitious folks in Asia and South America. Now we're supposed to be tradesman again..they can't outsource that, right?? The joke's on you, dummy with the student loans! You should have apprenticed as an electrician!
But the slapstick comedy isn't over by a long shot. Because King Mike and his neoliberal henchmen speak with forked tongue. They aren't done pulling the rug out from underneath the hapless American worker just yet. Oh no...it gets better: these are the exact same folks who are backing the immigration "reform" laws. They want to open the borders to a flood of...you guessed it...cheap skilled labor.
"You took us seriously and told your kid to become a plumber?? Hahaha! Good luck competing against the horde of immigrants! Free market at work....SUCKER!!!!"
OMG...so true!
And I am a union electrician...and this is OUR (American tradespeople) biggest fear!
And I am a union electrician...and this is OUR (American tradespeople) biggest fear!
BOHICA, sparky. They're gunning for us, and no matter how much breath I expend trying to convince my fellow tradesmen that the free-market ideologues who run today's GOP are not your father's Republicans...it does no good.
Today's Democrats are just as bad, but at least they aren't sneering about socialism and AYn Rand as they break the American worker. No, with them it's all sanctimony and studies showing that workers can be retrained and here's a bit of gay marriage to make up for the fact that you're now a Walmart greeter instead of a tradesman.
I've come to realize something. It's not that unions take some of the pie that, in the minds of the owners belongs strictly to them. No, what really rankles them is our attitude. The American tradesman is the last bastion of a certain "take this job and shove it" cocky independence that is as American as apple pie and is going the way of the passenger pigeon, fast. That refusal to truckle and tug the forelock is unbearable to our white collar managerial class and their bosses in the C suites.
Just like any other profession, Trades like Plumbing can become oversaturated, and actually, I think there is already more than enough.
Some people should go to college, and some go the union route, and some should work retail and fast food. There is nothing wrong with any. They are all honest work.
BOHICA, sparky. They're gunning for us, and no matter how much breath I expend trying to convince my fellow tradesmen that the free-market ideologues who run today's GOP are not your father's Republicans...it does no good.
Today's Democrats are just as bad, but at least they aren't sneering about socialism and AYn Rand as they break the American worker. No, with them it's all sanctimony and studies showing that workers can be retrained and here's a bit of gay marriage to make up for the fact that you're now a Walmart greeter instead of a tradesman.
I've come to realize something. It's not that unions take some of the pie that, in the minds of the owners belongs strictly to them. No, what really rankles them is our attitude. The American tradesman is the last bastion of a certain "take this job and shove it" cocky independence that is as American as apple pie and is going the way of the passenger pigeon, fast. That refusal to truckle and tug the forelock is unbearable to our white collar managerial class and their bosses in the C suites.
Or just maybe if some union people weren't so closed minded, they could be working with the immigrants on things such as labor rights.
Unions often act as gatekeepers, especially in the trades. In order to get plumbing work, you have to pay to join the union and meet certain standards. Defacto, this also has the effect of locking out competition.
It is good to get union benefits and I have certainly benefitted from them. That doesn't mean that everything unions do is always correct.
I am a union electrician...and this is OUR (American tradespeople) biggest fear!
Really? Not the fear that open enrollment in unions would end their monopoly in the construction trades?
Quote:
Originally Posted by high iron
studies showing that workers can be retrained
Oh, those awful studies!
Compared to your personal opinion that job skills, such as ironworking, are genetic, and union membership should be limited to blood relatives?
I feel that the big problem is the closing down of most NYC vocational high school programs . There aren't as much vocational high school programs as there used to be . Before, one could graduate high school with a high school diploma and a trade to sustain themselves even if they chose not to go to college . I recently graduated from high school in January, and I regret not going to one of the few vocational high schools left because I can't even find a job while I'm in college now . I'm glad that my brother goes to a vocational high school now for Nursing so that he has the option of going to college or not .
There aren't as much vocational high school programs as there used to be.
Bloomberg was making the same comments in 2008: City to Open Vocational Schools - NYTimes.com
"110,000 of the city’s high school students, or 38 percent, are enrolled in vocational classes in the public high schools. That is down from 58 percent in 1990. Approximately 30,000 students are enrolled in 21 vocational schools. The rest of the students are enrolled in general education high schools (there are 282 vocational programs around the city)."
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