Quote:
Originally Posted by FuglyStick
Hey, that's fucking funny.
My father has been in a wheelchair for nearly thirty years as a result of an injury he sustained working at a strip mine. Although industrial safety standards are improving all the time, accidents do happen, and when you work in an environment of heavy machinery, those accidents generally have greater consequences than a paper cut.
Didn't make more than $28 an hour? Should've joined a union, or your union negotiator sucked.
And "unskilled labor?" Without unskilled labor you would have nothing, zero, nada, unless you're growing your own food, making your own clothes, refining your own gas, etc., etc. "Unskilled labor" is essential for you being able to live like you do today. But they're just peons, right? Fuck 'em. Fuck the selfish bastards for trying to make a living. You can get by without them. Just wave a magic fucking wand, and all your basic needs will be provided for, and those crybaby peons can take a flying leap.
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Sorry to hear about your father.
I don't think anyone is advocating slave labour. The issue is the amount of control that unions exert, and the extent that they push just because they can. You might not think $28/hour is a lot, but that's $58K/year - much higher than average. I'm a skilled worker as a programmer (not to be arrogant) with an education I (mostly) payed for, and I only make about $8k more than that. I rarely do the same thing twice.
Yes risk should be rewarded, and on-the-job injuries should be paid for by the companies that led to them, but does Joe-highschool-dropout deserve to earn as much as someone who earned a masters and has rare/diverse skills to use, just because he works with heavy machinery around instead of the local Taco Bell? In many cases, the same person could do either.