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Every fucking time:
It’s a distinction between “on-the-job training will suffice” and “no chance without years of prep.”
No shit anything worth paying a human for involves human skills. But some jobs are open to just about anyone who can put up with it, and some jobs kill people when you try to muscle through on sticktoitiveness. A fast food restaurant can bring some rando up-to-speed in a couple weeks. An ER cannot. The distinction is necessary.
Nitpicking the label misses the point:
All labor deserves a living wage.
It doesn’t fucking matter how difficult or complex a job is. If your business wants people’s time - you had better fucking pay them enough to be there next month. Otherwise, you don’t get to be a business.
Absolutely. I’m SUPER pro-worker, pro-union, etc., but unskilled labor isn’t a myth. There are some jobs that can be done with essentially no training or skills at all. These jobs should pay a living wage, because all jobs should. But that doesn’t change the fact that some jobs require little-to-no skill. I think that repeating this false claim actually HURTS the movement for fair wages, because it’s not a supportable argument.
I feel that the distinction is made wrong. All these labors shown may not require much of a formal education towards the job, but they all require skill that will be refined significantly over time.
- Somebody who works as a harvester for years is much faster at picking crops and much more efficient at seeing which are ready to harvest and which arent.
- Anybody who has kids knows that it takes years to traing them, how a properly cleaned house looks like.
- Cashiers who are familiar with the workings of the companys systems, who know the numbers of bread, produce and other non-barcoded goods by heart are much faster and have less situations requiring looking something up. This in particular are skills that simply require on the job time and experience. The same issue exists for engineering project managers who cannot learn all the PCA codes of their company in the first week.
- Everyone knows the difference between bar-staff that knows how to properly draw a beer and those who don’t.
- Fast food workers need to perform consistently in a high stress environment, and keeping taps on the fries, the burgers, three customers orders and dealing with the half-broken coffe machine is a skill many CEOs would lack. Same goes for waiters in restaurants
- Being a good brick-layer takes years of practice. A well built brick wall with consistent gaps and a smooth surface is difficult to achieve, and both aesthetically and structurally important.
- …
Finally many of these jobs also require social skills and provide socialisation as part of the experience. My favorite barkeeper manages not only to get everyone their drinks in a packed bar, but also chat with the regulars and newcomers while at it. People could just order take-away instead of going to a restaurant. But having a nice restaurant atmosphere is part of the experience and the result of good waiters and so on.
We accept experience as a relevant salary and position argument for “high skilled”, which should be called “high educated” labor. It is equally relevant in supposedly “low skilled” or “unskilled” labor.
Getting better at something you picked up in a month is not the same as needing years of training to even begin.
Experience is the opposite of the problem. The concept distinguishes jobs where people are fundamentally incapable of performing the task to bare-minimum standards, until they’ve been thoroughly educated, tested, and prepared. A doctor doing their first surgery has zero prior experience. It’s their first. But they are already an expert, in some capacity, thanks to abundant theory and practice.
Again: no kidding all jobs take skill. No kidding you can get better at things. But an experienced bartender does not make tending bar “skilled labor” so long as any line cook could be pressganged into it while that guy takes a dump.
But an experienced bartender does not make tending bar “skilled labor” so long as any line cook could be pressganged into it while that guy takes a dump.
And then he messes up the CO2 and the bar cannot serve for ten minutes, losing them plenty of money.
More importantly though, the concepts are not just distinguished like that. For the “skilled” labor, it is normal and expected, that experience is paid. People whose job description reads “senior” often make 30-50% more than what people who are considered "junior"s make, even though the education is the same. But this is not done in this way for the supposed “unskilled” labor, even though the productivity and hence the value of the labor to the employer does increase just as equally with experience on the job.
Finally, i work as an engineer. Quite frankly most of what the people in a typical corporate setting do, could be done with on the job training perfectly fine. The positions were specific knowledge is required from higher education are not only limited in number, but also in scope. As a result you could also train these in maybe half a year. And if i ask older colleagues about stuff from their studying time they usually just laugh, because they’ve forgotten most of it.
Oh no, losing money! Surely that’s the same kind of problem as killing people.
You’re not really listening.
Looks like you are driving a train you are not skilled for, with your derailing.
Employers pay employees money in exchange for work. That is the fundamental principle of wage labour. In a fair situation the employee’s wage reflects the value he provides to the company. This is denied to so called “unskilled” labour. You also want to deny it by overexpanding your example. Yes a doctor requires a lot of prior education. But if you think a surgeons first operation is on a live human, you are wrong. They train surgeries beforehand. Because with all the education, if the hands remained unskilled an educated doctor is still a deadly surgeon. On the flipside for a standard surgery it would be perfectly possible to train a nurse how to do it, and merely have a doctor supervise for unforseen medical aspects. And again, ask a knee surgeon after 20 years about heart diseases. Ask a cardiologist about knee surgeries. Both will have forgotten most of it.
But finally your arguement of killing people is a hyperbole. Do you know how many people die as the result of “unskilled” labor fucking up? The most deadly occupations like logging, farming, mining and construction are all requiring responsibility for protection of your own and other humans lifes, where proper experience and skill are crucial to maintain safety.
So while you talk about hypothetical unskilled doctors, the denial of skill needed in many occupations is actually killing people.
But if you think a surgeons first operation is on a live human, you are wrong. They train surgeries beforehand.
Read what I fucking wrote or don’t talk to me.
There are some jobs that can be done with essentially no training or skills at all
I disagree with the use of the word “skills”. I think any job not involving any skills at all (carrying things from A to B for example) disappeared decades or centuries ago. Every job now requires at least some skills. I certainly could never do a lot of “unskilled” jobs. I don’t have the physical attributes for some of them, and I don’t have the personal skills for others. The real issue is that while some of these jobs do require skills, they’re skills that are common enough that the people with those jobs are easily replaceable. Someone who stands up for themselves can be fired and replaced easily and the replacement will only need on-the-job training.
Also, people who work in jobs that require only on-the-job training can become extremely skilled at them. But, unfortunately, that often doesn’t lead to them making any more money. They’re much less replaceable when they gain skills at those “unskilled” jobs, but it doesn’t often lead to them knowing that they have any real power. And, often they don’t. An employer will often be willing to fire a very skilled low-wage employee if the employee speaks up for themselves, rather than risk the other low-wage employees getting any uppity ideas.
As for “poverty wages”, that’s not really related to capitalism or to labeling something “unskilled”. It’s just power dynamics.
Peasants had “poverty wages” long before capitalism was a thing. They owed a lot of labour to whoever owned the land they worked on, and in many cases even if they were growing food, they were literally starving because they owed the food harvest to the land owner. If they didn’t deliver, they could be severely punished or even killed. But, if you were a skilled craftsman, you could escape from that trap. You may still not have had any real legal rights, but you were likely to get a pretty high wage. There’s a reason that one of the big secret societies is the Freemasons. Stone masons had power because they were not easily replaced.
Wages are about power, who had the power to demand more than just subsistence living. If you do a job that requires only on-the-job training, you’re probably pretty replaceable, so your bargaining power is limited. If your job is hard to replace, you’re better compensated.
The only power that “unskilled” workers have is that there tend to be a lot of them. If they joined unions, that union would have a lot of members so it would have some power. If they voted for political candidates that truly represented them, those candidates would have a lot of backers. Unfortunately, in recent decades, the uneducated low-skilled workers have been convinced to vote against their own interests. They vote for parties that scapegoat others, and then gut policies that would benefit low-wage, “low-skill” workers.
i have known a not-insignificant amount of people who interepret the word ‘unskilled’ very literally. there are a lot of meanings these people hide behind the word ‘unskilled’, and they don’t mean ‘on-the-job training will suffice’, nor are they anywhere near that nice.
a doctor is highly-skilled, not merely skilled. i don’t see how describing someone’s livelihood as ‘unskilled’ can be — in any way — a good faith assessment in any constructive capacity.
Nitpicking the label misses the point:
All labor deserves a living wage.
people can care about more than one thing. i can care about the problematic language of economists while also believing everyone deserves to have their needs met.
You have known a not-insignificant amount of tribalist assholes. They don’t mean things when they say words. The natural shape of the universe, in their eyes, is a hierarchy where the bottom half must suffer, and they’ll make whatever mouth noises justify that foregone conclusion.
If I gave you all the time in the world to pick a better label and you chose one we both agreed was flawless then those assholes would invent some other stupid reason to make the exact same claim. That’s how they think arguments work. That’s all they think we’re doing. That’s all they think there is.
This label can’t justify poverty wages, because nothing justifies poverty wages. And if you renamed it, the people trying would keep trying. You have to recognize these assholes and stop taking their arguments seriously. They’re not arguments. They’re slogans.
If it wasn’t ‘they’re unskilled!’ it’d be ‘those jobs are for teenagers!’ or ‘but hamburgers will cost thirty dollars!’ or ‘robots will do it instead!’ and if you try engaging with any of those then you’ve already lost. These people don’t fucking care. Prove them wrong and nothing changes. You have to attack the conclusion, because that’s all they have.
i agree with everything you’ve written here. we don’t need a new term. i propose eliminating ‘unskilled labour’ from our collective vocabulary, because some people who aren’t completely far gone would stand to benefit from recognising this term as you put it: a slogan. i’m not saying i expect a huge amount of effort on this front. no campaigns, just awareness.
i don’t disagree with what you’ve written here; i’m disagreeing with your point in the GP, that:
The distinction is necessary.
it’s a concept that i believe is only useful to the managerial class (and other hierarchists). it isn’t constructive in labour organising.
The distinction is literally life and death, sometimes. I don’t call it necessary just because I think it’s neat.
The most ardent outright anarchists still need to distinguish jobs anyone can kinda do versus jobs with intense risk, impact, and/or time pressure. This is that term. You can pick a different one - but you cannot get rid of the concept, unless you want surgeons and architects who keep saying “oops.”
i also want to add that this ‘distinction’ — of who is easily replaceable — is only useful to certain classes that shouldn’t exist. it isn’t a term of what jobs can be easily replaced, it’s about what people can be easily replaced, and that’s unhelpful to the proletariat.
everywhere i’ve ever lived, ‘unskilled labour’ was used more as a slur than an economic term.
I think unskilled there just implies no prerequisite knowledge required
That’s just entry level. There’s plenty of entry level skilled labor out there.
Entry level means something different for every field. An entry level cook and an entry level engineer have two different sets of expectations for the employee.
All of which are skilled labor
You are confusing chefs with cooks. Line cooks are hired with no experience or training, the same cannot be said for chefs.
You are confusing line cooks with dishwashers. No one hires a line cook that has no experience or training.
No experience necessary for line cooks.
You’re talking to an actual chef with over 20 years of hiring experience. You don’t hire line cooks with no experience.
The term being changed to mean something else by whoever is writing these articles is the real crime; how do you not understand what unskilled labor means? Changing the term isn’t going to earn you better compensation for something that doesn’t require formal or specialized education. Get over it.
Thank heavens we stopped hiring unskilled labor.
Anyway, back to hiring from a talent pool that is as wide as possible due to a lack of barriers to entry because no particular requirements are necessary for employment and thus we can get away with paying the bare minimum and still getting enough job applicants. If only there was a word for that scheme…
Maybe if they were called “jobs that don’t require years of training” instead.
Though I agree in principle. Just because a full-time job doesn’t require years of training, doesn’t mean it shouldn’t pay at least a living wage.
Nooo. But it’s a conservative myth those jobs don’t require training!!!11 Try reading meme again
Does the label even matter?
When lots of people would do the job, and many even for less than you, why not hire someone else for less?
When you’re the only one who qualifies, the situation reverses. Why bless that company with your work, when you can go to someone else who pays more?
Maybe it’s all just supply and demand within the limits of regulation.
I think calling it a surplus labour or something similar would be more descriptive.
Something that gets across that it is not an ‘in demand’ labour, which is the real reason it’s low paid.
Note. I’m not saying it’s right that it’s low paid, just talking through the issue of why it is.
Yes, talking about is, not ought.
Something that gets across that it is not an ‘in demand’ labour, which is the real reason it’s low paid.
Similarly, we see astonishingly low wages for ridiculously high skilled work, for example scientists.
Maybe it’s really all about unvalued labour. Or surplus labour, as you say. While having rare skills is no guarantee for being valued, lacking those surely doesn’t help in getting more value either. So I think there is a correlation between unskilled and low pay, even if it’s not a direct cause.
It’s supply and demand. Scientists publish their discoveries to the commons, so there isn’t much demand for people to hire them. Many would-be scientists go into fields like finance and engineering specifically just for the pay (fields that are in demand, but have low supply). Science is a public good, so a market failure occurs.
“Unskilled labor” is labor that many can do or learn on the job, so there is a high supply. It doesn’t matter how hard or essential the work is, it’s going to be low pay due to the low barrier of entry. Which is unjust, and Why Socialism (Einstein) is needed.
Yeah I agree.
In demand labour makes sens as a term to me.
In supply labour doesn’t have the same meaning to me when I say it out loud. That’s why I liked the term ‘surplus labour’ because it implies there is a surplus of people who can do the job, driving down how much people are paid for it.
Thank you for supplying all this valuable context, honestly.
That’s not surplus labor. Surplus labor is employed people who don’t have things to do. Or unemployed people who are able and want to work, if you’re taking about the market broadly.
And scientists are low paid at the start - and higher paid later, just like doctors and architects and plenty of people who have tremendous lifetime earning potential.
Scientists in academia are hit or miss wage wise, but have a high quality of life. Plenty of private sector scientists make $$$.
There’s tons of demand for unskilled labor. There’s also tons of supply because literally almost everyone can do it.
There’s lots of demand sure, but the amount of demand doesn’t outweigh the amount of people that are available to do it, like other jobs. This is why I went with the word surplus. There’s a surplus of people that can do the job
When the ability to learn said skill is gatekept by the wealthy it ceases to be supply and demand
So make a meme about education should be free. There will always be unskilled labor. I can show someone how to use a lawn mower in 20 minutes, or screw caps on a tube in an assembly line.
I don’t need to pay someone extra to go to school for 4 years to do those jobs.
This is a pretty shortsighted comment.
Never, in the history of the world, has it been easier and cheaper (free in many cases) to learn a new skill. Have you heard of this thing called the internet where there are thousands of free courses teaching anything and everything?
Planting? That’s your example of a desirable skill? Free courses will get you nowhere financially or otherwise. You need verifiable certificates and licenses.
Planting was a typo. Fixed that.
For many careers you do not need certs or licenses. Almost every role in big tech can be self taught. Programming, SQA, systems engineering, business analyst, project management, and on and on can all be self taught. I say this as I work with a number of folks that do not have college degrees.
I agree that would be unfair or however you want to judge it, but I don’t see how your conclusion follows.
It does not matter if the acquisition of qualification is gatekept, subsidized, free or restricted. Either way, you have a pool of people who are qualified for a job, and that pool has a size. Smaller pool roughly correlates with higher pay.
It’s supply and demand, regardless of why the pool has it’s size.
I also think it has never been that easy to learn things. Wikipedia, YouTube, social media … sharing skills, following your interests, learning whatever you’d like to learn … imagine you had to ask your dad for permission or be accepted into a guild for it.
Farming is “unskilled” labor?
Holy fuck, come to a farm one day. A single day could encompass anything from forensic accounting, roboticist, veterinarian, or heavy duty mechanic.
that’s uh, that’s part of the point of the meme. a lot of “unskilled” jobs are like that.
Those cunts in their ivory towers need to stop thinking that it’s the 19th century ffs.
Idk man my labour is pretty unskilled, I think anyone could do it really (I’m a middle manager)
But it is still labo–AH AMANAGER! GET IM!
Yes and no. It’s all about how replaceable you are. If you have a super limited skil and I demand l set like lots of types of engineering, software development, or any other discipline that requires many years of study- I would consider you “skilled”
“Unskilled” roughly translates to “we could teach anyone to do it”. There isn’t a big learning curve to flipping burgers- I’ve flipped plenty myself and it was not a vibe.
They should still be paid a little bong wage either way
Amazon worker has his dick out. I think he needs more skill first
One of these things is not like the others.
I respect anybody working a job, especially since ther work environments are almost always worse than mine. However, their qualifications don’t concern me too much. I assume they get the necessary training.
But a bricklayer building my house or office? I think that’s a skilled trade where I want to know more about their experience.
The masons try to keep a low profile even promoting themselves as unskilled because they are the secret power behind the country.
On the weekends I’ve been working on a concrete foundation for my new fence…talk about unskilled work. I’m having to scrape every ounce of shit I’ve ever learned from my dad to skill this wall into existence. It’s 90% labor, 10% skill. So that tells you how much this should be paid in comparison to my actual desk job… okay fine engineering is way more difficult in skill but like 10% labor so we can still equate stuff to stuff.
It boggles the mind that a CEO could earn much more than several to hundreds to thousands of workers do. That’s just not right. That’s robbery.
It’s also a great tool to keep the slightly less poor turned against the not poor. Oh they don’t have skills, so they don’t DESERVE to get off of welfare when working full time hours.
Right, that’s sound logic. Why can’t we raise the minimum wage to $600/hr? Solves all problems right?
“Skill” in this sense can be boiled down to “replaceability due to automation.” The Industrial Revolution was as much about displacing highly trained, highly skilled craft laborers as it was about increasing raw production numbers. Highly trained craft workers up to that point handled most production of most things that weren’t food. To get around paying these folks for their training and skill, industrialists invested in automation so they could replace people who had literally trained for years in that craft with someone who just walked in off the street. Instead of having a team of carpenters who’d trained for years working in concert on every step of a process, you had a series of individual stations on a production line and only needed to train a new hire against their single specific role in the production line, not the whole process. The breaking-up of labor into small steps shared out across teams, in roles that could be trained in weeks or days instead of years, is kind of one of the core techniques of industrial production.
Because of the relatively less training needed to get started on the production line, factory owners were able to drive down wages substantially across the board and displace craft labor. The industrial revolution boosted profits as much by driving wages down as it did by increasing production, and using a hierarchy of “skill” (where the factory owners are constantly trying to replace workers with leverage) to pay workers less was one of the ways it did that.
Anyways, so yeah. There’s always been work that’s more skilled and less skilled, but the term “skilled labor” sort of derives from this phenomenon during the Industrial Revolution. In that sense, it is totally bullshit meant to drive down wages.
EDIT: Found some snippets on general history sites regarding this process: https://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_textbook.cfm?smtID=2&psid=3517
https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/industrialization-labor-and-life/
A related art movement, the Arts and Crafts movement, which arose as a response to the impact of industrialization on craft labor: https://www.thecollector.com/industrial-revolution-arts-and-crafts/\
EDIT: A word
Why is the black woman labeled a myth?
Why does the bottom right corner guy have his dick out
He’s peeing into a bottle.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/mar/25/amazon-delivery-workers-bathrooms-memo
my tired ass was convinced that was a baguette and it didn’t occur at all how strange that would be
it didn’t occur at all how strange that would be
Haha. Thanks for the laugh.
It took me a sec too. Maybe it’s because the bottle has a slight curve.
Getting your dick out isn’t a skill so falls into the unskilled labour territory
ITT: people justifying poverty wages
Yes, nobody should be able to legally work unless it’s for a lower bound of like $200/hr and absolutely free-ass healthcare
So basically your position is that some people who have full time jobs deserve to live in abject poverty. Cool, thanks for the input lemmy.world lib.
Why are they always from lemmy.world?
Sorry, how did you assume that from my comment? Maybe try rereading it
From your multiple comments mocking the idea of a livable wage for low skill work. If you do support one I don’t know what you’re being sarcastic about.
Preposterous framing of a simple issue. People need money to survive. Jobs that need doing that don’t pay people enough to survive shouldn’t exist. Yes, healthcare should be free-ass.
