Ever seen someone doing their “unskilled job” all their life? It’s just fucking magic!
The truth is that capitalists hate skilled workers, because those workers have bargaining power. This is why they love the sort of automation which completely removes workers or thought from the equation, even if the ultimate solution is multiple times more expensive or less competent than before.
Nothing is more infuriating to a boss, than a worker that can talk back with experience.
From my experience in both the workforce and reading the news, I feel like CEO is a strong candidate for “unskilled job”. I mean, when someone can simultaneously be the CEO for a major car company, a major rocket company, a brain implant company, and an infrastructure company, and be the owner, CTO and Executive Chairman of a major social media company, while still having time to spend all day xitting out their unhinged thoughts to the world, CEO has to be the easiest job in all of humanity.
Add ‘landlord’ to the list of unskilled jobs
- cops
It’s not easy. You have to be completely dead inside and ready to fire all your coworkers at a moment’s notice!
Exactly. Every job has it’s own skills, whether that be mental, physical, or both.
There’s not a single job on Earth that you could plop someone into with no practuce and have them instantly be good at it - if someone tells you otherwise they’re either incompetent or they’re lying (like stated in the above meme)If you can learn your job well enough after a week or so to do it satisfactorily, it’s an unskilled job.
There are definitely unskilled jobs. When I was a cart attendant at Target, I was in an unskilled job. If someone with less than two weeks training were left to do one of the jobs I have now, people would literally die.
The urgency or criticality of the job is not what makes it unskilled.
One can argue that an unskilled supermarket employee can cause economic hardship, or even death (think food poisoning).
There’s no such thing as an unskilled job.They all require training and in all of them you become better as you learn more about that skill. How you learn that skill, in practice or in theory is irrelevant.
Likewise, the fact that some businesses are OK to eat economic losses in bad workers and turnover in order to keep the worker dis-empowered does not make the job “unskilled”
So like a CEO?
Implying CEOs learn anything
Skilled labor is just compressed unskilled labor, at the end of the day labor is labor.
Some jobs require more skill, and some workers are more skilled. You can’t get around that fact. That doesn’t mean anyone should be making poverty wages. I think it’s fair though that workers are paid more for learning skills. That can be either though paying them more at work, or paying them while they are in education. Note I don’t just mean free education, I mean actually giving them money to study. That’s the only way to make paying skilled and unskilled workers the same a fair system.
I disagree. A skill is a skill. Some are more skilled than others IN THE SAME SKILL. You cannot objectively compare a different skill with another. If a skill required to do surgery is “more” than flipping a burger, then being good at surgery means you are magically good at flipping burgers, but that is not the case.
Some skills take longer to acquire. Much longer. Some require certain aptitudes. As you say you can be more skilled than another worker at the same job, because you have more experience, training, aptitude, or you just care more. How is paying them all the same in any way fair?
Oh yes and some people have a greater number of skills than others. How is that not being more skilled than another?
I am not saying we should pay them the same?
So you were just being pedantic then?
Yes, sorry
Only “talking back if experienced” is the reason for poverty wages. If they are willing to let us starve for profit, why can’t we burn down their homes for bargaining power? Why let them put their value on us in the first place and accept what we are given?
We should remember who is parroting the “unskilled jobs” thing over and over. It’s always capitalists that benefit from paying these folks poverty wages like the meme states. So while the category can be called “unskilled” to differentiate from jobs that require months/years of formal (or informal) training, capitalists use it as an excuse to exploit. Both things can be true at the same time for different reasons.
I learned how to drive a forklift in a day for a stock room. Capitalists would still call it an “unskilled” job because I didn’t put myself into massive debt with a student loan, spending time I don’t have in a classroom. When does that job suddenly become “skilled”? Is there some imaginary threshold capitalists will accept?
Anyone that is contributing to the pool of labor is using a skill of some sort. Whether you think your job is easier than another or not doesn’t matter. All of the voids are filled with people willing to do a skill. CEOs and landlords, on the other hand, are contributing nothing to the labor pool. Simply owning a thing is not skilled work, but they will tell you otherwise, just like they set the standards for what is “skilled” vs “unskilled.” It’s all skewed to benefit the ruling class and give them an excuse to not pay a living wage.
For context, I’m a programmer that has been in the field for 18 years. Until the working class undoes this conditioning and equally supports each other, nothing will change for the better.
I disagree that CEOs are equivalent to landlords. CEOs do create value by providing direction for the efficient application of resources to solve business problems and leadership and direction to employees. It’s not an easy job, by any stretch.
That said, taking skill doesn’t mean that CEOs should be entitled to massive take-home pay. I think the “fix” comes in adjusting our taxation system, not CEO compensation. Well, at least so long as we’re tied to the profit-seeking corporation structure we’re in. A “good” CEO can lead a company to producing significantly more value than a bad CEO, so let them fight for big compensation packages all they want.
The highest marginal tax rate in the US for individuals peaked at 92% in the early 50s. If we had sane marginal income tax rates at higher income levels, then there would be no problem with executive income. (Granted, we also need to fix taxation on other forms of compensation and capital gains, too.)
There are also so many “skills/abilities” that aren’t something you learn in school.
I’ve found through my experience that I tend to be a more “valuable” employee because not only do I actually give a shit about what I do, but I also care to ask questions and actually learn about my position and how other positions play into my role. I’m not trying to pat myself on the back, it’s just something I’ve noticed very very very few people I’ve worked with do as well.
That’s not something I’ll ever get paid more for because it’s not written on a stupid piece of paper certified by some expensive university, but it’s 100% beneficial to the company.
Yeah, exactly. There are tons of people out there that have amazing soft skills and curiosity they don’t get paid anything extra to put forward. Now we have this stupid phrase “quiet quitting” for people that are doing exactly what they are paid to do, while contributing nothing over and above. Capitalists will constantly demand the “over and above” in things like annual reviews etc, but they rarely compensate to match it. It’s a system where one side holds all of the leverage.
First, I don’t think “unskilled jobs” is used correctly most of the time and agree with you 99%. My quibble is that people often say “unskilled jobs” to mean “jobs that can be learned to do adequately without prior experience.” Some, not most, of the jobs you show fit that category. I wish we had a corrolary to this meme to express the benefit employers get from employees who become skilled at these roles. Purely economically, if I am a manager who can hire someone who has gained great experience and can hit the job running day 1 at an “unskilled” job instead of having to train and performance manage a truly “unskilled” candidate, it would easily justify a 50-100% pay increase as it reduces the cost of management by more than that.
I think Superstore says it best:
Amy: They’re not really gonna replace us! What are they gonna do, find someone who stocks go-backs like Mateo or who works the cash register like Elias?
Myrtle: Yes. Those are both very easy things to do.
The problem is that people generally look down on these types of jobs. Blue collar vs white collar.
Everyone deserves a
livingthriving wage. You know what’s impressive? A cashier who has memorized every produce code whereas I struggle to remember the syntax of a foreach loop and I have to look it up each time. Wtf is a map type?! When did that become a thing?!
- refalo ( @refalo@programming.dev ) English7•5 months ago
Ever seen someone doing their “unskilled job” all their life?
Why yes, yes I have.
Its probably an unpopular opinion considering the comments here, but I think it should be said that maybe it comes easy for alot of people, but being a cook at a fast food joint like Dairy Queen or Culver’s absolutely takes a certain amount of skill. Skill not every person has, or can learn.
When a place is busy, takes a certain process of thought patterns and organization to keep track of all the different ingredients on the griddle, what stage they’re at while cooking, while ensuring everything is cooked in a timely manner.
Sure, many people can succeed at learning these skills, not everyone can. It is a skill, and honestly, it’s slightly upsetting to see people think it’s as easy as breathing, when it’s just not for some people. If it were actually that simple, you’d never have to check the bag to make sure they got the order right before you drive off and there wouldn’t be videos of fast food workers being mistreated for giving some jerk fries instead of onion rings. Ever.
Imo, although there is overlap, both jobs require some skills that different than the other. Typically, surgeons perform, at most, a handful of types of surgery (per surgery), on 1 or 2 people at a time. They know what surgery will be preformed ahead of time, so they can prepare, and there’s a typically a set procedure for the deviations or complications that may arise. Successfully improvising is what sets a great surgeon apart. And, if all is going well, they have teams that can stabilize the patient for an extended amount of time. Fast food workers are assembling multiple orders with multiple foods in minutes. It may take a surgeon years to learn proper surgery, but it doesn’t mean they have the skill or mindset that is required to flip burgers.
Even if the work itself is easy, dealing with customers is a skill set too. Too many of my friends couldn’t hold customer facing jobs because they just couldn’t deal with people (understandably).
I would disagree. We all need a living wage even for doing the most unskilled labor. Picking up dog poop or shoveling cow poop from one truck to another. There are jobs that require skills,
But everyone deserves a living wage absolutely.
The problem is capitalism, not the fact that our society has unskilled labor jobs
Skilled labor is just compressed unskilled labor, the training is just more unskilled labor unfolded over the expected working life of a worker.
Labor is labor.
No you don’t understand. Fancy universities and colleges are superior to practical experience. The difference is…umm…you have to pay a lot of money to go there, so only the right people can do so, which just proves that they deserve the high paying jobs.
It isn’t superior, but it takes on a different character. Labor is worth itself as an average of the totality of labor.
Training is unproductive labor that is applied over the expected working lifetime. Practical experience is a form of training, yes, but this is earned over an average as well.
Does that make sense? That’s why a seasoned electrician earns more than a journeyman, despite both having training.
Both are true. Some educations create skillful workers, just like anyone practicing a trade over time acquires skills with regards to their tasks. That being said, many degrees are just manufacturing diplomas for middle class and bourgeoisie kids who want to feel superior (and have an excuse to be rewarded as if they were).
Yes, supply and demand also impact the price of a type of labor, but the value created trends towards the average hour of labor.
god damn right
Replace unskilled jobs with UBI jobs.