Quote:
Originally Posted by pontiacjs
You are the exception. And with the shrinking middle class it will be harder to do.
What service industry are you in? Have you ever worked in a factory? It is a gruelling, never ending piece of crap job that wears you out. You are on your feet all day doing the same thing every day day in and day out. Your hands hurt, your back is destroyed, your body and mind just gets worn out. They should be paid a fair wage and $12 per hour is not a fair wage.
Why do you begrudge someone a decent income?
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Being on both sides of the fence, I think I can relate well.
Neither of my parents have a large annual income (total around 60k Canadian a year for the family... Even less now that both parents have health issues that limits their working ability). However, through good money management, they have helped pay my sister's way through her Master's Degree, helped me with my rent and schooling costs, away from home for the past couple of years, no mortgages (both their home and a rental property are fully paid off), travel back to the home country every couple of years, and take care of all of my aging grandparents. For one, they don't live above their means. We don't have expensive cars, our house isn't unnecessarily big, we don't own a boat, etc. Granted, we do have so called 'unlimited/universal' health care, but its not great. My father had to wait months to have surgery on his shoulder that rendered him unable to work for many months (bone deposits growing into some nerves). My mother has had a yearlong battle with rheumatoid arthritis, and finally is getting treatment by the 'appropriate' doctor (jockeyed around by doctors before getting sent to a specialist). Given lost wages, health insurance would be affordable. Compared to some people I work with, who yearn for payday to come every week, or beg for overtime shifts to cover the bills, makes me wonder what the hell they are doing wrong.
Likewise, as a 3rd year engineering and management student, I am making the most money of anyone in my family. I work as a student at GM Oshawa as an absentee line worker, and as a bartender at my campus bar. Factory work is VERY tedious. Some jobs can be extremely hard on certain parts of your body, especially joints and fingertips. Hours are long (I work midnights), but, I do get paid very well. Working 2 jobs while having 30+ hours a week is very tiring, but it will get me out of university debt free (5 years at almost 20k a year for schooling costs = lots of debt for a typical student/family). Friends who are away doing engineering internships make in a week what i do in just over 2 shifts, which I think is ridiculous. A just wage is a just wage, but a guy driving a forkilft or a part truck should NOT be making that much more than an engineer that has such a huge impact on quality, safety and productivity (also, given the ratio of line workers to engineers... that gap is further widened as a total percentage of worker pay).
For the money that UAW/CAW workers get paid, GM (and others) might as well replace their workers with engineers and technicians who strive for quality and productivity, while making the same wage that a non-skilled worker would make