It doesn't cover that because it didn't cover that. You don't have to address the totality of a situation to comment on it. Lemmy is particularly bad at this concept.
Strawman fallacy. They (Dangblingus) tried to argue with a completely different topic to try and discredit the argument, without acknowledging the difference.
If someone stated they like the color blue, and another person states that red is better, asserting that the first person hates red. That would be a stawman.
Op stated unskilled labor means no prior experience.
Comment stated then why is it ok to give slave wages.
OP was not making an argument about wages. Making the comment a starwman since they are arguing a point that was unrelated to the original argument.
LMAO no, taxes used correctly would end up solving most of these problems. Government influence in housing markets would solve these problems.
Letting Nestle draw even more drinking water to turn into mountain dew doesnt.
"Unskilled" and "requiring no previous qualificatuons" aren't the same thing. Even "unskilled" labor can have many qualifications, even if most people would meet said qualifications. Hell, some people even don't meet the qualifications for McDonalds for various reasons that are unrelated to skill. And similarly labor that requires no previous qualifications can still be labelled "unskilled".
The difference here is that you can go into McDonald's and learn on the job with little to no difficulty in the process.
"Patties are found in the freezer here. Go into the freezer, grab a box, put it here, take out and put 9 on the grill, grab these salt & pepper shakers and shake once overtop and then press this button; once it beeps it's done and you throw them all into this warmer here." Jobs been mainly taught and you can rock that for a whole shift.
OP is using McDonald's as it's pretty universal to know the basics of life on that part. Like how to press a button, what a freezer is, how to carry something and how to move objects without ruining things.
Go ahead and try to teach someone how to be a doctor/dentist with the same common knowledge. Or how to get someone to program an application when they only know how to turn on an iPad and open an app.
Difficulty is subjective. Like yeah, to me and most people the jobs labelled "unskilled labour" are going to be easy and being a doctor or dentist is going to be hard, nobody's arguin that. But it gets a lot fuzzier when you start getting into seemingly low-skilled jobs which are put at higher value and labelled "skilled labor", and seemingly high-skilled jobs which are put at lower value and labelled "unskilled labor". This is especially apparent with manual labor (including some trades).
Plus it completely ignores the fact that things that are hard to one person can come extremely easily to another, and vice versa. Not every fast food employee can be a lawyer, but not every lawyer can be a fast food employee. Surprisingly, employers for "low-skill" jobs can be very picky with employees. And there exists extremely low-skill lawyers just like there exist extremely low-skill fast food employees. Same with teachers. The only difference in this case is that being a lawyer requires you to pay tens to hundreds of thousands for a degree, so the barrier for entry is artificially higher for poorer people.
Right now the case is mostly just that jobs considered low-value by society are called "unskilled labor" while jobs considered high-value by society are called "skilled labor" despite not being higher in actual skill used or required. Even disregarding manual labor, I wouldn't consider my office job particularly high skill, it has a low barrier to entry and anyone could reasonably get a similar position with very little time investment, but it's lumped into "skilled labor" just because it pays a lot and people don't view it with a stigma like they do with low-paying jobs. Hell a lot of middle managers know absolutely nothing about the job of the people they manage, but they get labelled as "skilled laborers" anyways.
Difficulty has nothing to do do with skilled or unskilled labor. Skilled labor is labor that requires formal training and/or significant experience, unskilled labor usually entails on the job training that lasts less than a week.
What are the high skilled jobs that are labeled unskilled labor?
Farmworkers, custodians, construction workers, and similar manual labor are labelled as "unskilled labor" yet they generally require a lot of training to do correctly. And paradoxically other trades are seen as highly skilled jobs, despite requiring a similar level of experience or training.
Also in fast food training generally lasts more than a week. Idk where you got the "lasting one week" figure. And similarly, a significant portion of "skilled labor" jobs have no training at all (as I said, office jobs often don't have any training whatsoever even for entry-level positions).
Different job positions of the same type or in the same field require different amounts of training, expertise, etc., and trying to generalize them into categories based on what one feels is right is pretty much just a method to demean/stigmatize certain types of labor.
And by the way, difficulty being subjective is relevant because someone who finds little difficulty in a certain area may take very little to no training to be qualified for a "skilled" job, while someone who finds great difficulty in the area will take much training to be qualified for an "unskilled" job. There are plenty of people who initially have trouble doing tasks that you and I think of as simple and requiring little skill. Many "unskilled" jobs require people skills too, on the account that they have to deal with the worst behaved humans imaginable on a regular basis and get around that. Those especially require you to have a lot of skill often times, not unlike how necessary communication skills are in some skilled labor jobs (a tech position may be practically entirely built around communication and the actual "tech" part matters little).
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.
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.
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...
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.
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 $$$.
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.
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.
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.
Poverty wages are paid to workers that are highly fungible.
The concept of unskilled labor refers to tasks that require little or no specialized training or knowledge to perform. This can include manual labor or work that requires very basic skills. In reality, this type of work has existed for centuries, long before capitalism emerged as an economic system. For instance, agricultural work during the feudal era falls under the category of unskilled labor. Even today, there are numerous industries with high demand for such workers, from construction sites to warehouses.
Regarding the claim that unskilled labor is a "capitalist myth," it's important to note that while capitalism does promote a competitive market where businesses strive to minimize their costs (including labor), this concept has existed since the beginning of human civilization. It is not exclusive to capitalism. However, the extent of exploitation and the justification behind poverty wages might have intensified under a capitalist system due to private property rights and the profit motive.
When a business owner hires unskilled labor, they expect these employees to be less productive than those who possess specialized expertise or training. Consequently, businesses tend to pay lower wages to workers who do not contribute significantly to their profits. This notion may seem unfair to some, but it stems from the law of supply and demand. If there's an oversupply of unskilled labor, employers have the upper hand in setting wages at levels that meet their needs. As a result, many workers accept lower wages because they lack alternative employment opportunities.
In summary, the existence of unskilled labor predates capitalism, and its association with poverty wages is not solely due to this economic system. The concept of unskilled labor reflects tasks that require little training or knowledge, which can be found across various historical periods and societies. Furthermore, the link between low-paid unskilled labor and capitalism arises from market forces that determine wages based on supply and demand. Thus, calling unskilled labor a "capitalist myth" used to justify poverty wages oversimplifies a complex issue that involves factors beyond the scope of any one economic system.
It's crazy that you needed to write this essay to explain to Lemmy folks that:
unskilled/low skill labor does in fact exist
it was not invented by the cApITaLiSm boogeyman
gets paid lower relative to other positions in the industry because they're both easily replaceable and on an individual level do not generate as much value to the business as skilled/trained/professional labor
The above things can be true while also saying that ALL labor (unskilled or not) should be treated with respect and basic human decency.
I'm not stanning capitalism here, I'm just tired of Lemmings who've either missed all of their basic econ classes or have never tried to run their own business telling me how to allocate wages relative to value.
Executive pay relative to everyone else is out of control, no arguments there. But skilled and professional labor is highly productive relative to unskilled, and should be compensated accordingly.
Exactly. If all labor was valued equally, why would people bother becoming surgeons or air traffic control people? Those can be very high stress jobs and require specialized training to do properly. Higher wages are a huge part of why people choose those professions.
I agree about executive pay, but dismissing unequal pay is like throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
The real problem is that for most of western history, unskilled labor was largely performed by slaves.
Funny thing is, you balance earnings and expenses for slaves vs modern workers, and the math vastly favors the slave. But that’s bad for other reasons.
When a business owner hires unskilled labor, they expect these employees to be less productive than those who possess specialized expertise or training.
It may not even be that they are productive on their own, but that they have essential skills or knowledge that allows the business to function. For example: they may be one of few people who know the ins and outs of a specific mission-critical system, and that knowledge may not be easily transferrable.
It’s not just how much you contribute to profits, it’s also how easily you can be replaced. If you contribute a lot to profits, but you can easily find 100 others who can replace you, you’re still not getting a big paycheck.
I have to ask, why are we even working so fucking hard??
What has all of this hard work we've been doing accomplished? Our infrastructure is failing. We're throwing food away. We are wasteful and killing the environment. What has 'hard work as a virtue' gotten us?
Check the distribution of wealth in your country and around the world, that's where the fruits of our work end up. Also just throw-away or downright destructive labor, like making shirts that turn into garbage after one month, or drugs and entertainment products that make people addicted instead of healthy and happy.
Having studied the history of work, this is one of those things that sounds super smart, but is actually half-baked nonsense. As hard and crappy as medieval life was, you still work twice as many days in a year as a medieval peasant did. It gets worse the more societies and ways of life you study.
Oh sorry, I'm suppose to automatically give credence to the, "the work you do is insignificant compared to our ape ancestors" guy because he wrote it in a post. Bite me.
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
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.
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.
"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.
I've done plenty of simple unskilled hard work. Blueberry raking, worked in the kitchen of a pub doing dishes, bussing, cooking; uhaul dispatching and fixing trucks. Although fixing trucks is certainly not unskilled.
What point are you trying to make? Part of the discussion on the term 'unskilled' labor is that it helps justify lower pay, when everyone should be paid at least a living wage no matter the 'skill' level or replaceability of a worker. There is useful meaning to the terms 'skilled' and 'unskilled' in labor but people view it as disparaging to jobs like cashiers or waitstaff because there are skills that are required to do those jobs well, though obviously different than being trained as a welder or another trade.
By referring to these jobs as 'unskilled', people will have less of a problem with workers in these positions being seen as replaceable, because 'anyone can do it', even though if you've ever been a waiter or in a similar 'unskilled' job you'd know it's difficult and not everyone is capable of doing it well.
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.
I don't think anyone deserves to live in abject poverty. I know people in the trades- some of them make more than those who went to college, and with less debt, so the entire premise of the post and your lazy moral outrage is cliche and embarrassing. It's just not reality, but I understand it's more fun to bandwagon and play to the crowd than actually think. Doesn't make it noble.
Nobody says the skilled trades are unskilled labor they're literally called skilled trades. That also has nothing to do with your comments mocking a livable minimum wage.
The sarcasm is pointing out the absurdity of legislating a living wage. The reality of minimum wage laws is it forces all business to an arbitrary lower bound of wages regardless of the other terms of a work contract. Nobody I know who has been working for over a year makes the minimum wage so it's not doing much for any person who's built some skills and experience. What it does do is squeeze small businesses, so Tony's family farm across the street gets in trouble if his family helps out in any official capacity and doesn't meet the minimum wage requirement. It's extra red tape to boost big corporations who love it and squeeze small businesses who get mired in the red tape to accommodate the law. I wish that wasn't the case but it is unfortunately. It's about as silly as a maximum wage.
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.
So you think a barista should be paid as much as a surgeon or nurse practitioner, both with more than a decade of education and correlated schooling expenses?
The meme isn't saying that they should be paid the same, it's saying that just because you're a janitor doesn't mean you deserve to be living off of ramen packets and 4 hours of sleep every day.
So the issue is already moot because people don't even understand the nuances in the job market.
A janitor can kill people if they don't do their job properly, or themselves, if they use any of their tools improperly. It can take several years for a professional cleaner to become well trained.
An unskilled labour position would be a cashier or barista. A farmer requires years of training and should be paid according to the amount of effort it takes to become a trained farmer. The cook (used to) require a red seal, which is several years training, now days it's microwave/fry/flip and is thus unskilled into robot replacement.
The examples even used in the meme suck. The landscaper and construction workers are absolutely skilled labour.
This is trying to 'equalize' the job market but you can't do that. Different jobs require different training and you should be paid accordingly. The only people 'justifying' poverty wages are the billionaires, no one else thinks that 7 dollars is appropriate, however, by trying to push this meme the OP and a lot of people in the replies are trying to pretend like 'any job that doesn't have a degree associated is 'unskilled labour' according to capitalists' but that's not the case, and even the investing market doesn't believe that, i.e. 'da capitalists'.
All labor involves skill. You can be skilled at anything and experience enhances that skill. The only question is if people value that skill. Most people value a skilled janitor; a skilled gardener; a skilled customer service representative; etc. I know I do.
A batista can kill by using incorrect cleaning chemicals, wrong ingredients to those who may be allergic, or who knows wtf. Food workers have food safety.
I think I was trying to point out that unskilled labor isn't always unskilled. Some do require higher skill by a significant amount but there is seldom a job where no skill can get you by.
... that's a fucking leap. If the nurse practioner has a house to live in; food on the table; and likes their job. What the fuck do they care if a barista has; a house to live in; food on the table; and likes their job????
Edit: If there is anyone here who still believes in the meritocracy, I got some shit to tell you all. You poor people still believe your ticket will come due someday and it's all gold toilets from there.
You immediately changed the core of the discussion to fit your view not to actually discuss the matters at hand.
"Unskilled labour" = job you can be trained in, in under two months
"skilled labour" = decades of education and experience requiring acute professionalism in order to not kill people
No one said the barista can't have a house, I specifically said, IN NO UNCERTAIN TERMS, "you expect a barista to be paid as much as a surgeon or nurse".
No. Because you do not deserve the pay of a surgeon or nurse and you do not have the expenses of a surgeon or nurse.
FYI medical school is extremely expensive, and so is post secondary education in any form. I say this because your clear illustration of ineptitude leads me to believe you have very little formal education, if any.
Yeah, your argument is bad. I think the number of people who legitimately think, "a barista should be paid the same as a surgeon!" are in an extreme minority. What's not in the minority, however, are the number of people who attempt to justify poverty wages for people working jobs that don't require as much training. The person you responded to was justified in calling your argument a leap because it is
No one saying unskilled labor is really skilled labored because it hurts the unskilled persons feelings. They are saying by calling something unskilled it is justification for them not making a living wage.
No where in the OP did they say all laborers should be paid the same.
Every time that meme is presented (or any form of 'unskilled labour isn't real opinions) there's a foray of incompetent tools pushing the belief that communism or some form of 'geared wages' is going to fix the problem with monopolies and greedy billionaires.
I, and most other comments here, are presenting a reality that 'unskilled labour' is real, and no one is trying to justify poverty wages, we're justifying a reality that education does in fact make a difference for monetary gain
It just means "no prior knowledge required". It's not a myth lol
Even McDonalds trains you to use the equipment before they let you use it.
... which is usually a matter of hours, not several years of academic studies
See the difference ?
Want someone to sweep the floor ? You can quite literally grab some one off the street and tell them to do it, with some amount of success.
Your words:
If you need to be trained, then I guess McDonald's is skilled labor.
Then why is it justified to pay people poverty wages? Your answer doesn't cover that.
I didn't claim it was justified?
It doesn't cover that because it didn't cover that. You don't have to address the totality of a situation to comment on it. Lemmy is particularly bad at this concept.
A comment is a comment, not a through rebuttal
Strawman fallacy. They (Dangblingus) tried to argue with a completely different topic to try and discredit the argument, without acknowledging the difference.
Edit: since everyone interpreted this wrong.
The statement has two clauses, are you saying we're not allowed to acknowledge corrections to clause A without also addressing clause B?That seems a little silly, I'd think you'd strive for the most accurate overall statement, and corrections to either clause should be welcome.You can offer an objectively true correction without addressing the entire argument, can you not?EDIT: I misunderstood the comment - disregard this.
If someone stated they like the color blue, and another person states that red is better, asserting that the first person hates red. That would be a stawman.
Op stated unskilled labor means no prior experience.
Comment stated then why is it ok to give slave wages.
OP was not making an argument about wages. Making the comment a starwman since they are arguing a point that was unrelated to the original argument.
Ah, okay, I thought the straw man accusation was pointed at the fellow defining unskilled labor. My bad!
I get you. Ya I was supporting GBU, not saying they were making the stawman.
I guess you left out the brackets in the first version - I have to admit I misread it even then.
Only commenting to let you know that your edit succeeded in at least one case, no matter the points! ♥
Lol nope
Nope what? You didn't make the strawman guy.
God damn right I didn't.
LMAO no, taxes used correctly would end up solving most of these problems. Government influence in housing markets would solve these problems.
Letting Nestle draw even more drinking water to turn into mountain dew doesnt.
LMAO you are delusional.
The housing market in the US is fucked because we let people do whatever the fuck they want.
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.
Because it's unskilled.
I could walk into McDonald's tomorrow and in a day have nearly every thing I'll ever need for the job.
"Unskilled" and "requiring no previous qualificatuons" aren't the same thing. Even "unskilled" labor can have many qualifications, even if most people would meet said qualifications. Hell, some people even don't meet the qualifications for McDonalds for various reasons that are unrelated to skill. And similarly labor that requires no previous qualifications can still be labelled "unskilled".
The difference here is that you can go into McDonald's and learn on the job with little to no difficulty in the process.
"Patties are found in the freezer here. Go into the freezer, grab a box, put it here, take out and put 9 on the grill, grab these salt & pepper shakers and shake once overtop and then press this button; once it beeps it's done and you throw them all into this warmer here." Jobs been mainly taught and you can rock that for a whole shift.
OP is using McDonald's as it's pretty universal to know the basics of life on that part. Like how to press a button, what a freezer is, how to carry something and how to move objects without ruining things.
Go ahead and try to teach someone how to be a doctor/dentist with the same common knowledge. Or how to get someone to program an application when they only know how to turn on an iPad and open an app.
Difficulty is subjective. Like yeah, to me and most people the jobs labelled "unskilled labour" are going to be easy and being a doctor or dentist is going to be hard, nobody's arguin that. But it gets a lot fuzzier when you start getting into seemingly low-skilled jobs which are put at higher value and labelled "skilled labor", and seemingly high-skilled jobs which are put at lower value and labelled "unskilled labor". This is especially apparent with manual labor (including some trades).
Plus it completely ignores the fact that things that are hard to one person can come extremely easily to another, and vice versa. Not every fast food employee can be a lawyer, but not every lawyer can be a fast food employee. Surprisingly, employers for "low-skill" jobs can be very picky with employees. And there exists extremely low-skill lawyers just like there exist extremely low-skill fast food employees. Same with teachers. The only difference in this case is that being a lawyer requires you to pay tens to hundreds of thousands for a degree, so the barrier for entry is artificially higher for poorer people.
Right now the case is mostly just that jobs considered low-value by society are called "unskilled labor" while jobs considered high-value by society are called "skilled labor" despite not being higher in actual skill used or required. Even disregarding manual labor, I wouldn't consider my office job particularly high skill, it has a low barrier to entry and anyone could reasonably get a similar position with very little time investment, but it's lumped into "skilled labor" just because it pays a lot and people don't view it with a stigma like they do with low-paying jobs. Hell a lot of middle managers know absolutely nothing about the job of the people they manage, but they get labelled as "skilled laborers" anyways.
I always appreciate your perspectives, but this comment really meanders. Bit of a force, this one
Difficulty has nothing to do do with skilled or unskilled labor. Skilled labor is labor that requires formal training and/or significant experience, unskilled labor usually entails on the job training that lasts less than a week.
What are the high skilled jobs that are labeled unskilled labor?
Farmworkers, custodians, construction workers, and similar manual labor are labelled as "unskilled labor" yet they generally require a lot of training to do correctly. And paradoxically other trades are seen as highly skilled jobs, despite requiring a similar level of experience or training.
Also in fast food training generally lasts more than a week. Idk where you got the "lasting one week" figure. And similarly, a significant portion of "skilled labor" jobs have no training at all (as I said, office jobs often don't have any training whatsoever even for entry-level positions).
Different job positions of the same type or in the same field require different amounts of training, expertise, etc., and trying to generalize them into categories based on what one feels is right is pretty much just a method to demean/stigmatize certain types of labor.
And by the way, difficulty being subjective is relevant because someone who finds little difficulty in a certain area may take very little to no training to be qualified for a "skilled" job, while someone who finds great difficulty in the area will take much training to be qualified for an "unskilled" job. There are plenty of people who initially have trouble doing tasks that you and I think of as simple and requiring little skill. Many "unskilled" jobs require people skills too, on the account that they have to deal with the worst behaved humans imaginable on a regular basis and get around that. Those especially require you to have a lot of skill often times, not unlike how necessary communication skills are in some skilled labor jobs (a tech position may be practically entirely built around communication and the actual "tech" part matters little).
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.
https://www.indeed.com/q-no-experience-cooking-jobs.html
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.
Yes, talking about is, not ought.
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.
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.
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.
Poverty wages are paid to workers that are highly fungible.
The concept of unskilled labor refers to tasks that require little or no specialized training or knowledge to perform. This can include manual labor or work that requires very basic skills. In reality, this type of work has existed for centuries, long before capitalism emerged as an economic system. For instance, agricultural work during the feudal era falls under the category of unskilled labor. Even today, there are numerous industries with high demand for such workers, from construction sites to warehouses.
Regarding the claim that unskilled labor is a "capitalist myth," it's important to note that while capitalism does promote a competitive market where businesses strive to minimize their costs (including labor), this concept has existed since the beginning of human civilization. It is not exclusive to capitalism. However, the extent of exploitation and the justification behind poverty wages might have intensified under a capitalist system due to private property rights and the profit motive.
When a business owner hires unskilled labor, they expect these employees to be less productive than those who possess specialized expertise or training. Consequently, businesses tend to pay lower wages to workers who do not contribute significantly to their profits. This notion may seem unfair to some, but it stems from the law of supply and demand. If there's an oversupply of unskilled labor, employers have the upper hand in setting wages at levels that meet their needs. As a result, many workers accept lower wages because they lack alternative employment opportunities.
In summary, the existence of unskilled labor predates capitalism, and its association with poverty wages is not solely due to this economic system. The concept of unskilled labor reflects tasks that require little training or knowledge, which can be found across various historical periods and societies. Furthermore, the link between low-paid unskilled labor and capitalism arises from market forces that determine wages based on supply and demand. Thus, calling unskilled labor a "capitalist myth" used to justify poverty wages oversimplifies a complex issue that involves factors beyond the scope of any one economic system.
It's crazy that you needed to write this essay to explain to Lemmy folks that:
The above things can be true while also saying that ALL labor (unskilled or not) should be treated with respect and basic human decency.
I'm not stanning capitalism here, I'm just tired of Lemmings who've either missed all of their basic econ classes or have never tried to run their own business telling me how to allocate wages relative to value.
Executive pay relative to everyone else is out of control, no arguments there. But skilled and professional labor is highly productive relative to unskilled, and should be compensated accordingly.
Exactly. If all labor was valued equally, why would people bother becoming surgeons or air traffic control people? Those can be very high stress jobs and require specialized training to do properly. Higher wages are a huge part of why people choose those professions.
I agree about executive pay, but dismissing unequal pay is like throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
You really can't tell when someone's using ChatGPT to shit out persuasive essays?
The real problem is that for most of western history, unskilled labor was largely performed by slaves.
Funny thing is, you balance earnings and expenses for slaves vs modern workers, and the math vastly favors the slave. But that’s bad for other reasons.
It may not even be that they are productive on their own, but that they have essential skills or knowledge that allows the business to function. For example: they may be one of few people who know the ins and outs of a specific mission-critical system, and that knowledge may not be easily transferrable.
It’s not just how much you contribute to profits, it’s also how easily you can be replaced. If you contribute a lot to profits, but you can easily find 100 others who can replace you, you’re still not getting a big paycheck.
I have to ask, why are we even working so fucking hard??
What has all of this hard work we've been doing accomplished? Our infrastructure is failing. We're throwing food away. We are wasteful and killing the environment. What has 'hard work as a virtue' gotten us?
Can't we just live our lives??
It's not about us. It's all for our glorious owner class and keeping the dream/lie going🙃
Check the distribution of wealth in your country and around the world, that's where the fruits of our work end up. Also just throw-away or downright destructive labor, like making shirts that turn into garbage after one month, or drugs and entertainment products that make people addicted instead of healthy and happy.
Having studied the history of work, this is one of those things that sounds super smart, but is actually half-baked nonsense. As hard and crappy as medieval life was, you still work twice as many days in a year as a medieval peasant did. It gets worse the more societies and ways of life you study.
So we should work hard because our ancestors worked hard?
We should work hard studying so our reading comprehension is better
Oh sorry, I'm suppose to automatically give credence to the, "the work you do is insignificant compared to our ape ancestors" guy because he wrote it in a post. Bite me.
LMAO only a commie would downvote this.
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!
Nah, just a joke haha. I agree with the meme... Even in the case of us despicable managers.
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
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.
Amazon worker has his dick out. I think he needs more skill first
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://www.loc.gov/classroom-materials/united-states-history-primary-source-timeline/rise-of-industrial-america-1876-1900/work-in-late-19th-century/
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 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
It took me a sec too. Maybe it's because the bottle has a slight curve.
my tired ass was convinced that was a baguette and it didn't occur at all how strange that would be
Haha. Thanks for the laugh.
Getting your dick out isn't a skill so falls into the unskilled labour territory
Why is the black woman labeled a myth?
True. That’s why I never did high grade studies.
🙄👌👍. This is like listening to trumpsters.
Go work in a McDonalda for a day, that will change your tune
I've done plenty of simple unskilled hard work. Blueberry raking, worked in the kitchen of a pub doing dishes, bussing, cooking; uhaul dispatching and fixing trucks. Although fixing trucks is certainly not unskilled.
What point are you trying to make? Part of the discussion on the term 'unskilled' labor is that it helps justify lower pay, when everyone should be paid at least a living wage no matter the 'skill' level or replaceability of a worker. There is useful meaning to the terms 'skilled' and 'unskilled' in labor but people view it as disparaging to jobs like cashiers or waitstaff because there are skills that are required to do those jobs well, though obviously different than being trained as a welder or another trade.
By referring to these jobs as 'unskilled', people will have less of a problem with workers in these positions being seen as replaceable, because 'anyone can do it', even though if you've ever been a waiter or in a similar 'unskilled' job you'd know it's difficult and not everyone is capable of doing it well.
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.
I don't think anyone deserves to live in abject poverty. I know people in the trades- some of them make more than those who went to college, and with less debt, so the entire premise of the post and your lazy moral outrage is cliche and embarrassing. It's just not reality, but I understand it's more fun to bandwagon and play to the crowd than actually think. Doesn't make it noble.
Nobody says the skilled trades are unskilled labor they're literally called skilled trades. That also has nothing to do with your comments mocking a livable minimum wage.
The sarcasm is pointing out the absurdity of legislating a living wage. The reality of minimum wage laws is it forces all business to an arbitrary lower bound of wages regardless of the other terms of a work contract. Nobody I know who has been working for over a year makes the minimum wage so it's not doing much for any person who's built some skills and experience. What it does do is squeeze small businesses, so Tony's family farm across the street gets in trouble if his family helps out in any official capacity and doesn't meet the minimum wage requirement. It's extra red tape to boost big corporations who love it and squeeze small businesses who get mired in the red tape to accommodate the law. I wish that wasn't the case but it is unfortunately. It's about as silly as a maximum wage.
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.
So you think a barista should be paid as much as a surgeon or nurse practitioner, both with more than a decade of education and correlated schooling expenses?
Can I have some of whatever you're smoking?
The meme isn't saying that they should be paid the same, it's saying that just because you're a janitor doesn't mean you deserve to be living off of ramen packets and 4 hours of sleep every day.
A janitor is skilled labour though.
So the issue is already moot because people don't even understand the nuances in the job market.
A janitor can kill people if they don't do their job properly, or themselves, if they use any of their tools improperly. It can take several years for a professional cleaner to become well trained.
An unskilled labour position would be a cashier or barista. A farmer requires years of training and should be paid according to the amount of effort it takes to become a trained farmer. The cook (used to) require a red seal, which is several years training, now days it's microwave/fry/flip and is thus unskilled into robot replacement.
The examples even used in the meme suck. The landscaper and construction workers are absolutely skilled labour.
This is trying to 'equalize' the job market but you can't do that. Different jobs require different training and you should be paid accordingly. The only people 'justifying' poverty wages are the billionaires, no one else thinks that 7 dollars is appropriate, however, by trying to push this meme the OP and a lot of people in the replies are trying to pretend like 'any job that doesn't have a degree associated is 'unskilled labour' according to capitalists' but that's not the case, and even the investing market doesn't believe that, i.e. 'da capitalists'.
All labor involves skill. You can be skilled at anything and experience enhances that skill. The only question is if people value that skill. Most people value a skilled janitor; a skilled gardener; a skilled customer service representative; etc. I know I do.
A batista can kill by using incorrect cleaning chemicals, wrong ingredients to those who may be allergic, or who knows wtf. Food workers have food safety.
Don't be so silly.
You are missing the point of what I said or are intentionally misrepresenting what I said.
I think I was trying to point out that unskilled labor isn't always unskilled. Some do require higher skill by a significant amount but there is seldom a job where no skill can get you by.
You can't go in to a job and do it with zero experience anywhere, therefore it is skilled labour.
... that's a fucking leap. If the nurse practioner has a house to live in; food on the table; and likes their job. What the fuck do they care if a barista has; a house to live in; food on the table; and likes their job????
Edit: If there is anyone here who still believes in the meritocracy, I got some shit to tell you all. You poor people still believe your ticket will come due someday and it's all gold toilets from there.
You immediately changed the core of the discussion to fit your view not to actually discuss the matters at hand.
"Unskilled labour" = job you can be trained in, in under two months
"skilled labour" = decades of education and experience requiring acute professionalism in order to not kill people
No one said the barista can't have a house, I specifically said, IN NO UNCERTAIN TERMS, "you expect a barista to be paid as much as a surgeon or nurse".
No. Because you do not deserve the pay of a surgeon or nurse and you do not have the expenses of a surgeon or nurse.
FYI medical school is extremely expensive, and so is post secondary education in any form. I say this because your clear illustration of ineptitude leads me to believe you have very little formal education, if any.
Yeah, your argument is bad. I think the number of people who legitimately think, "a barista should be paid the same as a surgeon!" are in an extreme minority. What's not in the minority, however, are the number of people who attempt to justify poverty wages for people working jobs that don't require as much training. The person you responded to was justified in calling your argument a leap because it is
It's a leap for anyone who has poor reading comprehension and refuses to engage in the topic and would rather push a view.
So sad that this perfectly describes what you are doing.
You don't understand the argument then.
No one saying unskilled labor is really skilled labored because it hurts the unskilled persons feelings. They are saying by calling something unskilled it is justification for them not making a living wage.
No where in the OP did they say all laborers should be paid the same.
Every time that meme is presented (or any form of 'unskilled labour isn't real opinions) there's a foray of incompetent tools pushing the belief that communism or some form of 'geared wages' is going to fix the problem with monopolies and greedy billionaires.
I, and most other comments here, are presenting a reality that 'unskilled labour' is real, and no one is trying to justify poverty wages, we're justifying a reality that education does in fact make a difference for monetary gain
Then answer my question you tool.