Unions came about for a reason, although they've gone off the reservation a bit IMHO.
I'm not experienced with unions but have been a bit weary of them.
And it is a sad state of affairs when all that's available is a minimum wage job. I've worked a few, and I understand. I guess I was lucky enough to be able to find work that allowed me to grow my skills as well as my pay. (My first steady job was $6.50 an hour, back in 1984.)
I entered the work force in about 2008. My first taste was during the height of the recession. Minimum wage was $7.06 at the time and I was lucky to find a sandwich shop job. A year or later or so I attended an open interview and saw 37 people show up for 2 minimum wage sandwiche hustling positions. I didn't have a chance being a kid with little experience. But my long winded point is that we have to vastly different backgrounds on the subject from 20 some odd years of different perspectives. Your tale is very similar to many older folks that I've talked to. As mine is similar to many of my peers. The whole bootstraps philosophy is rarely achievable these days. And I know many who would love to have such opportunities.
Sorry, I got onto a long winded sort of tangent there.....
The current situation is that it's more profitable to automate jobs now and there's becoming less menial work for your average people to survive on.
I'm not experienced with unions but have been a bit weary of them.
I've been in two. One that was decertified by the Feds after they put most of the leadership in jail, and one that is still around. My experience is mostly watching people who wouldn't be able to hold a job on their own if they weren't related to someone in a union.
The current situation is that it's more profitable to automate jobs now and there's becoming less menial work for your average people to survive on.
I think it's always been more profitable to automate. I'm old enough to remember when robots were first put into automobile factories in large numbers. I think your point is that there is less menial work available is key. There's a ton of work available for peole without college degrees, but it's not available everywhere. If you want to work on an oil rig you can't do that from an apartment in Brooklyn. Ya dig?
That's a very good point. Everything now a days thats worth while either needs a college degree or previous experience. I've applied, or intended to, for several jobs in fields I'm actually interested in. Only to find out an entry level position requires years of experience to even be considered.
And college tuition has become an abomination. 30-100k+ of debt to qualify for any level job with a salary to start paying that back.
I work with temps all the time who hold degrees in health, psychology, business, language and so forth.
Apparently it hasn't done them a lick of good.
Anyways I'm gonna have to put s pin in this for the night.
I look forward to more civil discourse with you in the future.
I wish I could upvote your reply twice.
There is indeed little to no incentive for employers to raise wages. Agreed.
Unions came about for a reason, although they've gone off the reservation a bit IMHO. And it is a sad state of affairs when all that's available is a minimum wage job. I've worked a few, and I understand. I guess I was lucky enough to be able to find work that allowed me to grow my skills as well as my pay. (My first steady job was $6.50 an hour, back in 1984.)
One of the consequences of raising the minimum wage is what we're seeing now. Businesses are cutting staff hours, automating what they can, and outright letting people go. It's the nature of the beast. We live in a mercantilist system, where business and government are two sides of the same coin. How can we make things better?
That's the $64,000 question.