२८ एप्रिल, २०२२

"That workers who attended college would be attracted to nonprofessional jobs at REI, Starbucks and Amazon is not entirely surprising...."

"The companies appeal to affluent and well-educated consumers. And they offer solid wages and benefits for their industries — even, for that matter, compared with some other industries that employ the college-educated. More than three years after he earned a political science degree from Siena College in 2017, Brian Murray was making about $14 an hour as a youth counselor at a group home for middle-school-age children. He quit in late 2020 and was hired a few months later at a Starbucks in the Buffalo area, where his wage increased to $15.50 an hour. 'The starting wage was higher than anything I’d ever made,' said Mr. Murray, who has helped organize Starbucks workers in the city.... [T]he gap between the expectations of college graduates and their employability has led to years of political ferment. A study of participants in the Occupy Wall Street movement, which highlighted income inequality and grew out of the 2011 occupation of Zuccotti Park in Manhattan, found that more than three-quarters were college graduates, versus about 30 percent of adults at the time...."

From "The Revolt of the College-Educated Working Class/Since the Great Recession, the college-educated have taken more frontline jobs at companies like Starbucks and Amazon. Now they’re helping to unionize them" (NYT).

६३ टिप्पण्या:

Michael K म्हणाले...

Those "Gender Studies" degrees are sure putting the college graduates on the path to success. Imagine if he had done an apprenticeship in auto mechanics.

rhhardin म्हणाले...

Unionizing is good for unions but nobody else.

stlcdr म्हणाले...

$15.50 an hour to pour coffee into a cup. When they have no self awareness, I think it's probably too much money being handed to them.

Wince म्हणाले...

Let's see what the people who like to call the last recession the "Great Recession" call the next one.

Critter म्हणाले...

I hear a collective cheer from parents all over the country who thought scraping and saving to send their kids to college would put them on a fast track to being a barista.

John henry म्हणाले...

Assuming LGBTQ here does not mean Let's get Brandon to quit

I don't understand the question

What else could LGBTQ etc be about than sex an sexual action and who sticks what in whom (Lenin's who/whom question), where and how.

Is there some other aspect of LGBTQ I am missing? If so, what?

Other than sex these are mostly just normal people. Within our broad range of normal.

Or are they abnormal in some other way I am missing? If so, how?

John LGKTQ Henry

gilbar म्हणाले...

Murray was making about $14 an hour as a youth counselor at a group home
WHY? i mean... WHY???

here's a Serious Idea... IF your children are going to
a) end up working at starbucks
b) think that starbucks pay is GOOD MONEY
..why not just Take the $200,000 you're going to spend on tuition, and Buy them a house instead?

Of course, THEN they wouldn't be able to use gilbar's taxes to pay off their loan.. But Still!

Jeff Weimer म्हणाले...

If they were actually smart, they could skip the $1.50/hr raise at Starbucks and go into the trades. Just *think* of the unionization/guild creation opportunities in those most classic of workers occupations.

In addition to $20-30/hr wages they could get *starting* in those noble professions.

Some people think they are too good for their own good.

Mike Sylwester म्हणाले...

Many adjunct teachers are likewise radicalized.

cubanbob म्हणाले...

"More than three years after he earned a political science degree from Siena College in 2017, Brian Murray was making about $14 an hour as a youth counselor at a group home for middle-school-age children. He quit in late 2020 and was hired a few months later at a Starbucks in the Buffalo area, where his wage increased to $15.50 an hour. 'The starting wage was higher than anything I’d ever made,' said Mr. Murray,"

Words fail me. He could gone to a vocational school and earned far more money. The level of arrogance and foolishness among these kids is awe inspiring and not in a good way. At the minimum the student loan program should be abolished to avoid furthering this nonsense. Until this fool gets his priorities straight and get a vocational degree that can lead to a job the pays good money all he will going ultimately will be competing with high school dropouts for jobs at McDonalds.

Achilles म्हणाले...

They just want to get paid to do nothing.

If you want a professional job doing professional work go get an RN nursing license. I don’t want to do that so I got a computer science degree.

Take hard classes do work people will pay you to do. You can get a job making professional money.

These people are lazy and shiftless. They could be plumbers and make 5 times what they are now.

They just don’t want to.

gilbar म्हणाले...

here's a modest proposal (NOT a serious question)
since
a) these losers don't work Real jobs..
b) these losers won't Even have children..

Wouldn't our society be more better off, if we make the CHOICE to harvest them as food?
I'm NOT saying that Johnny Clueless would make a Good Roast.. But maybe ground meat?
Most of them are (probably) nicely marbled, and for Sure None of them are over exercised.

They seem to provide NOTHING, to promise NOTHING, to BE nothing... Why not put them to use?
We could tell them, that way they're helping climate change

Jupiter म्हणाले...

The massive expansion of higher education was sold with the claim that college-educated people will be more productive, and that increased productivity will allow them to earn more money. In fact, the higher productivity of the college-educated was due to the selective nature of college entrance. College has had to be dumbed way down to make it widely accessible. A political science degree from Siena College is not worth shit. Shit has some value.

The really appalling thing about the higher-ed racket is that we have allowed the colleges and universities to adopt predatory lending practices that would shame a used-car salesman. They are allowed to require full financial information about both students and parents. Then they tailor their "assistance" to wring the maximal amount from each. And they sell a frequently useless product to a naive and gullible child, with no guarantee. This has allowed them to bloat their curricula with useless courses, and their staffs with overpaid administrators. And by "overpaid", I mean "paid". These people are also worth less than shit. The only viable solution is to require them to guarantee their product, by forgiving loans for "education" that does not result in high earnings. When they have skin in the game, they won't be selling Whining Studies degrees to people who can't afford them.

Enigma म्हणाले...

So now, students with huge college debts must take jobs that pay too little and then spark a generation of confrontational labor relations. Myopic at every turn.

This is learning the hard way about the irrelevance of one's education. It has been an issue for decades, and follows from the unrealistic wishes and dreams of students plus bad adult guidance. Parents, teachers, and counselors are all at fault, and colleges pay their bloated administrative and staff salaries by roping in naïve young bodies and foisting ever larger student loans on them.

If you want your education to pay, start by looking at current job openings. With the rise of the post-COVID remote working shut-in class, there's likely to be a premium for any work requiring in-office or outside tasks. Non-college labor and technical jobs (e.g., industrial farming, installation, heavy equipment operation, and equipment repair) may be $$$$$$$ jobs of the near future.

Scotty, beam me up... म्हणाले...

I wonder how these unionized Starbucks employees with college degrees will feel when Starbucks has to raise prices on their already overpriced and mediocre coffee to pay for the higher wages and other perks (health insurance, pension, etc.) combined with some layoffs that will be a result of that new contract that is negotiated by their new union. The laws of free market economics can’t be forcibly overturned by our government no matter what Biden and his faceless handlers do. Good thing Biden is going to cancel their student debt on that useless degree that they earned - but, hey, these unionized college educated employees have that going for them…

Jersey Fled म्हणाले...

A guy in my neighborhood came to the conclusion that his two sons were not of a caliber to make it in a STEM job, so instead of sending them to a 2nd rate college to study political science or something equally useless, he gave then the money to start a landscaping company.

They now have a solid business with over 50 employees.

Smart dad.

Bruce Hayden म्हणाले...

Part of what is going on here right now is that the FJB Administration is worried about the elections in November, and are underwater in 40 states, as far as his approval. So, the natural solution to this is to eliminate college debt for all the baristas with gender studies degrees. Yes, it would be very regressive, with the non college grads ultimately paying for these economically idiotic college degree debt. But that sort of people are too stupid to have voted for FJB anyway in 2020.

Ted म्हणाले...

This was basically the premise of the now-canceled sitcom "Superstore," in which one of the characters was a (pointedly) overprivileged guy who dropped out of business school and ended up working the floor at a Target / Walmart-style big box store. (Although the setting was clearly less urban-professional-friendly than, say, an REI.) In the show, that character was one of the leaders of a union-organizing campaign.

Jaq म्हणाले...

Basically most of the white collar jobs that college grads with liberal arts degrees could get and do comfortably and live a good life, if they were unexceptional, have been automated by software. I spent most of my career automating jobs away. We had one guy who wrote scripts for these little computers to cusomize them, and I gave him a little RegEx script that did his job, he was happy, yet horrified. I told him not to worry, I wouldn't tell anybody, I liked him. I wrote it during my break after he described his job to me once. But layers of middle management are just gone. If you ever watch the movie, "The Apartment," get a load of all of those "junior executives" working with adding machines early in the movie. They are now baristas.

Mason G म्हणाले...

"[T]he gap between the expectations of college graduates and their employability has led to years of political ferment."

If you don't have the sense to major in something that leads to a job that pays better than an entry-level fast food position, that doesn't reflect all that well on your intelligence.

Just sayin'.

Mike of Snoqualmie म्हणाले...

Harvard, Yale, etc. sure snookered their "studies" students. Nothing like charging $200,000+ for a worthless degree and then getting the marks to pay you back!

MartyH म्हणाले...

“Hi Amazon drones! I partied for six years and got a BA in Irrelevance while you were working your asses off here. BTW, because of these weird things called called “seniority” and “skills” I make less than you. Who could know a degree in Irrelevance was worthless?

I also accumulated $50K in debt but it’s ok because Biden promised to forgive it.

As you can see, I’ve made a lot of good choices in my life. Now let’s form a union so we can all make the same amount of money and stick it to the lazy and privileged bastards who built this place! Who’s with me???”

Real American म्हणाले...

in other words, if you're these companies, don't hire college grads.

The Cracker Emcee Refulgent म्हणाले...

That unskilled workers who attended college would be attracted...

Not everybody can be an astronaut, but nobody invests in four years of college with the intention of being a barista or retail clerk. And I bet Mr. $15.50/hr lives with his folks.

n.n म्हणाले...

Those "Gender Studies" degrees are sure putting the college graduates on the path to success

In the worst case, nonvols = nonviables.

In the best case, they are evaluating the threshold of redistributive change (e.g. progressive prices, Obamacares), and reconciling productivity with [political] climate change. Something similar is happening, again, with couples, where a husband and wife decide the order of priorities and responsibilities, recognize that life is not so short as they were lead to believe, and both male and female sexes, masculine and feminine genders, respectively, acknowledge that they are equal and complementary.

Static Ping म्हणाले...

The logical disconnect from "the starting wage was higher than anything I'd ever made" to unionizing is stark. The purpose of unions is to protect the employees from the employer, not punish an employer that is treating them well. Unions are, by their very nature, disruptive, inefficient, damaging, and corrupt, and should only be implemented as a last resort.

Alas, what else can you expect from a higher education system that essentially taken over the role that high schools used to play, except now with political indoctrination and massive debt loads, all this to support massive armies of administrators that provide essentially no value and are a parasite on the entire endeavor.

B. म्हणाले...

They all bought into the fairy-tale that have a fancy degree would set them on the ever-upward path. All those people with BFAs in film—they could have gotten into the business as PAs and then into a good union gig, like IATSE or IBEW.

Jupiter म्हणाले...

"Unionizing is good for unions but nobody else."

Yes, and incorporating is good for the incorporators but nobody else. So what? There's nothing wrong with people forming unions. The problems arise when the government claims that forming a union has given them an enforceable right to someone else's property.

Jupiter म्हणाले...

There is a general principle of ethics, which says that the party to a transaction who has the best information should assume the most risk. But the government has instead not only allowed the universities to avoid all risk for the worthless products they sell, they have also prevented their victims from escaping their clutches through bankruptcy.

I realize that the Navel Studies major with the man-bun and the ring in his nose is a tempting target. But he is nonetheless a victim, of a vicious grift that very deliberately takes advantage of the hopes of innocent children to line the pockets of unscrupulous adults. At what point do we recognize that a University "Admissions Counselor" is every bit as depraved as a heroin dealer?

MadTownGuy म्हणाले...

"A study of participants in the Occupy Wall Street movement, which highlighted income inequality and grew out of the 2011 occupation of Zuccotti Park in Manhattan, found that more than three-quarters were college graduates, versus about 30 percent of adults at the time...."

Thorough indoctrination led to Occupation, but not a vocation.

John henry म्हणाले...

For badgers, can I recommend Wisconsin Indianhead Technical College? WITC.edu

They have a 2 year packaging machinery mechanic program I used to work with. When I was last there, most of the students had part time jobs building automated packaging machine next door at the Bosch plant and made enough to cover tuition. While learning one Hell of a lot OJT.

5-6 years ago, every graduate had several job offers in the $40-50m/yr range. If they were willing to work as field service technicians, 70-80% travel, they had job offers in the $80-100m range.

WITC also has a PLC programming as well as Welding, outboard mechanics and a number of other technical skills that seem to pay well.

I am a big fan. The packaging is one hell of a program. The little I know of the others looks pretty good too.

John LGKTQ Henry

PM म्हणाले...

So 4-year college grads are scooping up service economy positions and wages that were traditionally the entry positions for high school and jr college grads. Awesome! Way to help out the ones you so passionately care for and defend on homemade signs.

John henry म्हणाले...

I can't understand how anyone, even a poli-sci major, can think that there is any upside to unionizing Starbucks.

Union: Give us a dollar an hour more, starbucks or else we strike and picket.

Starbucks: OK.

Union: OK you agree to the raise?

Starbucks: No, we agree to the strike. GFY.

Unions had that power over the autos, steel, rubber and other very capital intensive industries because 1) They were very capital intensive and labor was not their major cost 2) shutting down a plant for even a few days, between the cost of shutdown, restart and lost production was hellishly expensive 3) Since there was no competition, and since all other companies paid the same, any increased labor costs could be passed along to the suckers. Oops. I mean customers.

A big benefit to unions at tose companies was that they no longer had to even have an HR function with the hiring, firing, promotions, motivation, trainin gand 101 other tasks to do.

Now they negotiate a contract and the contract IS the HR department. All the company has to do is comply. It is not cheap, it sure isn't efficient but it is easy for managers.

Doesn't work that way at Starbucks.

JK Brown म्हणाले...

This isn't anything new. It is just a popular meme now.

Graduating in 1976, with a degree in American history, my brother became a master carpenter. Part was a return to working for the contractor who had been his high school mentor. But he'd turned down an executive training program at "the phone company" when they wouldn't consider him for a lineman. He had a legacy in from our father. Several of his friends, also college grads ended up in construction. My brother eventually moved to nature conservation, trained teachers and ended his time as a fairly successful director of a small land conservancy. His writing, speaking and "smoozing" skills from his degree helped him.

The illusion of higher ed is that it prepares it's victims for good jobs. That's so 1960s. I needed my BS in Physics to get my career but all that was really required was a number of hours in Calculus and science. But walking our with a Physics BS, I realized that the higher was done by business major and engineers in the areas I was looking.

Truth in education would be to tell this to students. You may have improved your ability to advance, but your immediate economic skills are not being improved, except in those "vocational" majors of engineering, etc. At best, academia only directly trains those who wish to become academics, but then you have to get a PhD to even have a chance in academia.

But the world has changed, and schooling through the highest reaches of higher ed are not adapting to the new world

========
But, I want to go to the other end of the spectrum, which is intellectual services. It used to be, if you wave your Bachelor's degree, you're going to get a great job. When I graduated from college, it was a sure thing that you'd get a great job. And, in college, you'd basically learned artificial intelligence, meaning, you carried out the instructions that the faculty member gave you. You memorized the lectures, and you were tested on your memory in the exams. That's what a computer does. It basically memorizes what you tell it to do.

But now, with a computer doing all those mundane, repetitive intellectual tasks, if you're expecting to do well in the job market, you have to bring, you have to have real education. Real education means to solve problems that the faculty who teach don't really know how to solve.

And that takes talent as well as education.

So, my view is we've got to change education from a kind of a big Xerox machine where the lectures are memorized and then tested, into one which is more experienced-based to prepare a workforce for the reality of the 20th century. You've got to recognize that just because you had an experience with, say, issues in accounting, doesn't mean that you have the ability to innovate and take care of customers who have problems that cannot be coded.
--Econtalk podcast with economist Ed Leamer, April 13, 2020

John henry म्हणाले...

I can't understand how anyone, even a poli-sci major, can think that there is any upside to unionizing Starbucks.

Union: Give us a dollar an hour more, starbucks or else we strike and picket.

Starbucks: OK.

Union: OK you agree to the raise?

Starbucks: No, we agree to the strike. GFY.

Unions had that power over the autos, steel, rubber and other very capital intensive industries because 1) They were very capital intensive and labor was not their major cost 2) shutting down a plant for even a few days, between the cost of shutdown, restart and lost production was hellishly expensive 3) Since there was no competition, and since all other companies paid the same, any increased labor costs could be passed along to the suckers. Oops. I mean customers.

A big benefit to unions at tose companies was that they no longer had to even have an HR function with the hiring, firing, promotions, motivation, trainin gand 101 other tasks to do.

Now they negotiate a contract and the contract IS the HR department. All the company has to do is comply. It is not cheap, it sure isn't efficient but it is easy for managers.

Doesn't work that way at Starbucks.

John henry म्हणाले...

Blogger is acting wierd today giving me error messages and eating my comments.

If I am submitting multiple comments, apologies and please ignore.

John LGKTQ Henry

John henry म्हणाले...

re unionizing Starbucks, there is a Seinfeld episode that deals with that.

I am thinking of the one where Kramer tries to unionize the bagel shop. It took them 12 years but they finally settled.

https://youtu.be/r235gwc_dxk

A while back I stayed at the Congress Hotel on Michigan Avenue. The pickets were non-union members hired at minimum wage to annoy the guests.

No seinfeld ep but a HuffPo story:

Congress Hotel Strike Ends, 10-Year Strike Was Among The Longest In The World
May. 30, 2013, 11:05 AM EDT | Updated Sep. 18, 2014

The nearly decade-long worker strike at the Congress Hotel has reportedly come to an end.

According to Unite Here Local 1, the union representing Chicago hospitality workers, the strike ended Wednesday night following years of pickets and rallies dating back to Father's Day, June 15, 2003 at the Chicago hotel. The union claims their strike has been "widely recognized as the world's longest strike."
Advertisement

The striking workers had long called for wage and benefit increases and job security, but CBS Chicago reports the hotel has not offered any such concessions. The union will return to work under the terms of their last contract, which expired in 2002, according to the Chicago Tribune.



https://www.huffpost.com/entry/congress-hotel-strike-end_n_3359584

John LGKTQ Henry

JK Brown म्हणाले...

Interestingly, 1923 was a good year for articles on the state of higher ed in the US. Percy Marks, a professor at NE universities until being driven from Dartmouth for his book, 'The Plastic Age', which was the 'Animal House' of its time made into the movie that was the breakout for Clara Bow, ripping the lid off college life.

The link below is to the 1923 annual compendium of Scribner's Magazine which has a good number of excellent expositions on the state of higher ed.


The idea is, of course, that men are successful because they have gone to college. No idea was ever more absurd. No man is successful because he has managed to pass a certain number of courses and has received a sheepskin which tells the world in Latin, that neither the world nor the graduate can read, that he has successfully completed the work required. If the man is successful, it is because he has the qualities for success in him; the college "education" has merely, speaking in terms' of horticulture, forced those qualities and given him certain intellectual tools with which to work—tools which he could have got without going to college, but not nearly so quickly. So far as anything practical is concerned, a college is simply an intellectual hothouse. For four years the mind of the undergraduate is put "under glass," and a very warm and constant sunshine is poured down upon it. The result is, of course, that his mind blooms earlier than it would in the much cooler intellectual atmosphere of the business world.

A man learns more about business in the first six months after his graduation than he does in his whole four years of college. But—and here is the "practical" result of his college work—he learns far more in those six months than if he had not gone to college. He has been trained to learn, and that, to all intents and purposes, is all the training he has received. To say that he has been trained to think is to say essentially that he has been trained to learn, but remember that it is impossible to teach a man to think. The power to think must be inherently his. All that the teacher can do is help him learn to order his thoughts—such as they are.


--Marks, Percy, "Under Glass", Scribner's Magazine Vol 73, 1923, p 47
https://archive.org/details/scribnersmag73editmiss/page/44/mode/1up?view=theater


We are informed by many that education is failing us. And well it may he so, if producing books is eulogized and repaid by advancement, while the efforts to produce men are scoffed at. It has been dinned in our ears that education must save us at the present juncture. To which, if true, I reply that, unless we regain the love and art of teaching, we are lost.

The truth is that at present the teacher exists by sufferance only, and stands against the current in the scholarly fraternity-a fact recognized by students as well as by faculty. For the educational field has been preempted by the so-called "research men." Their standards of scholarship have been set up as the only norms.


---The Ban on Teaching by AN Instructor, Scribner’s Magazine, Vol 73, 1923

Robert Cook म्हणाले...

"Unionizing is good for unions but nobody else."

Sure they are. They allow workers to have a voice in the safety of their workplaces and job conditions, in negotiating benefits and levels of compensation, and in implementing protections against arbitrary or retaliatatory dismissal. It is democratic. You "Rah-Rah Amuricans" love to tout the greatness of our wonderful republic, where the people can (allegedly) shape our own society and guarantee our personal freedom, but you are all for the absolute dictatorship of the employer. Given that most of us spend most of our waking living lives at our jobs, it seems the workplace is where democratic self-determination should most be present, fought for, and cherished.

Greg The Class Traitor म्हणाले...

Enigma said...
So now, students with huge college debts must take jobs that pay too little and then spark a generation of confrontational labor relations. Myopic at every turn.

Starbucks: I don't go there. Fi they want to burn it down, I'm ok with that
Amazon: That's Bezos' source of wealth. I'll miss parts of it, but seeing that left wing scum bag get screwed by other left-wingers will be an amazing show. Pass the popcorn!

Dear Big Business executives:
When you side with the Left, you piss off and drive away the people who would protected you, while obtaining only temporary and local protection from those who hate you
your actions mark you as morons. Enjoy your companies burning down around you

Lurker21 म्हणाले...

The companies appeal to affluent and well-educated consumers.

That means you run the risk of having to serve people you went to college with, a very embarassing experience. It only works out if you can claim to be a writer or artist who hasn't made it big yet. Even then, you better have gotten your lousy degree from a a very liberal arts college so that the troglodytes who went into more lucrative fields weren't your classmates.

Greg The Class Traitor म्हणाले...

Jupiter said...
"Unionizing is good for unions but nobody else."

Yes, and incorporating is good for the incorporators but nobody else. So what? There's nothing wrong with people forming unions


Wow, Jupiter, you're really failing on the reading front today.

Union's are good for the Unions. Not for the workers, just for the people who work for the union.

Unions are the enemies of competence, because they demand payment based on seniority, not merit.

I'f you're in the top 50%, a union sucks for you

Temujin म्हणाले...

"A study of participants in the Occupy Wall Street movement, which highlighted income inequality and grew out of the 2011 occupation of Zuccotti Park in Manhattan, found that more than three-quarters were college graduates, versus about 30 percent of adults at the time...."

I wonder how many of those three-quarters of graduates were doing the raping, the stealing, the attacks on others, the shitting on the street and cars, and the massive ingestion of drugs? My word- the author acts as if Occupy WallStreet was something other than a planned Socialist answer to the Tea Party. And it was just like the Tea Party. Except for the raping, murders, shitting on the streets, drugs, respect for other individuals, etc.

As for the generation taking their next move from the classroom to the coffee shops of America, this is hardly a surprise. It's a generation raised in a cocoon where there was to be no disagreements, all people would think and say the same things, and give the same answers, no matter the question. These are young people who have been made to be afraid of the world outside of their bubble. So, what's a political science grad to do to keep that 'safe space' going? Starbucks it is. REI for those outdoor bubble enthusiasts. And of course, for those with the tech degrees- Amazon. All of these places provide the comfort of not running into anyone with dissenting opinions or strange ideas about how men are men and women are simply women, not SuperHeros with flowing capes and electric whips.

I like how the article states that "now their helping to unionize them." (Starbucks) It states it as a given that it's a positive, and not the disease that the majority of Americans view it. And what about the local Starbucks licensees? Not all Starbucks outlets are company operations. What about those licensees who are now facing the threats, overpriced help, added break times and vacation days, along with sick days for all unionized employees? Sounds great, right? Unless you're the one having to pay for it. Oh wait. The customer will be paying for it.

It's a generation that is not ready to join the world that they fear. So they won't. Peter Pan was suposed to be taught to them as fiction. It appears many took it seriously.

Sebastian म्हणाले...

"The Revolt of the College-Educated Working Class"

The real revolt will come when they start resenting the mismatch and realize Big Brother does not have the money to make up the difference.

In the short run, a little unionization here, some debt forgiveness there will keep things under wraps. But underemployment of the educated spells trouble everywhere.

Jupiter म्हणाले...

Greg The Class Traitor said...
"Union's are good for the Unions. Not for the workers, just for the people who work for the union."

Which class are you betraying? While it is certainly true that union administrators feather their nests, only the most gross ignorance could claim that unionization has had no benefit for workers.

Again, I am not claiming that a union is a benefit to those who are not members. I am simply saying that voluntary associations are common, and if no one is forced to join them, those who aren't members have no kick coming. Hint; can you think of a document that starts "We, the People, in order to form a more perfect ...."

Michael K म्हणाले...

My nephew has a college degree and did an apprenticeship with an elevator installer's union. He found that he makes more money as a technician than as an executive, even after 20 years,

Yancey Ward म्हणाले...

This is what happens when you force people with 90-100 IQs to get expensive and useless college degrees. They aren't good at anything other than making coffee and harvesting ballots, and the coffee still sucks.

Eric म्हणाले...

Remember the Occupy Wall Street guy who quit his job as a NYC public school teacher and got a Master's degree in puppetry only to return as a NYC public school substitute teacher?

effinayright म्हणाले...

As I said on the overnight thread, 40% of this year's incoming class at a certain New England state university (not UMass) are predicted by the faculty to flunk out this spring, because they do not know how to study. They don't take notes, they don't "get" the idea of what's important, and they mostly cut class in any case.

Thanks a pantload, Dr. Fauci!!! Thanks a second pantload, Randi Weingarten and the miserable excuses for "teachers" who infest our school systems.

In fifty years most of America will look like Mariupol does today.

Mariupol, but with lots and lots of Starbucks.

effinayright म्हणाले...

Robert Cook said...
"Unionizing is good for unions but nobody else."

Sure they are. They allow workers to have a voice in the safety of their workplaces and job conditions, in negotiating benefits and levels of compensation, and in implementing protections against arbitrary or retaliatatory dismissal. It is democratic. You "Rah-Rah Amuricans" love to tout the greatness of our wonderful republic, where the people can (allegedly) shape our own society and guarantee our personal freedom, but you are all for the absolute dictatorship of the employer. Given that most of us spend most of our waking living lives at our jobs, it seems the workplace is where democratic self-determination should most be present, fought for, and cherished.
*****************

Codswallop.

The 19th/early 20th century "safety and job conditions" issues are now addressed by huge numbers of government regulations and particularly by OSHA, and by local Boards of Sanitation. We're not talking about coal miners and guys in steel mills any more.

As for protections against arbitrary or retaliatory dismissal, it's remarkable that you say here frequently that Twitter et al can stifle free speech and fire people for "hate speech" [IOW non-woke speech] because they are not government entities, but companies like Starbucks should be forbidden to get rid of people who do not perform their job functions or are disruptive in the workspace.

As for..... "it seems the workplace is where democratic self-determination should most be present, fought for, and cherished...."

Just where the fuck did you get the idea that businesses---whether sole proprietor, partnerships, LLCs or corporations----are in any way "democratic" as opposed to hierarchical, or that the direction of the company is to be determined by its employees, and not the owners of the company itself?

What color are the latté grandes on your world?


Nancy Reyes म्हणाले...

Well it's better to be a barrista serving coffee to an elite clientel who agree with your politics than to take a two year course in nursing, or even a six month course in caregiving.
Because they claim to love "people" but don't really want to get their hands dirty doing work that actually helps people.

Caligula म्हणाले...

"Hey, I spent $200,000. to earn this Art History degree, and now they won't let me work as an unpaid docent at the Art Institute of Chicago!"

It's not fair! Mr President, make my student debt go awaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!

Greg The Class Traitor म्हणाले...

Robert Cook said...
"Unionizing is good for unions but nobody else."

Sure they are. They allow workers to have a voice in the safety of their workplaces and job conditions, in negotiating benefits and levels of compensation, and in implementing protections against arbitrary or retaliatatory dismissal.


I've "negotiating benefits and levels of compensation" at every job I've had that was NOT covered by a union.

The one time I had a job that was union, I had no say: there was one deal, take it or leave it.

So, bullshit.

Jupiter said...
Greg The Class Traitor said...
"Union's are good for the Unions. Not for the workers, just for the people who work for the union."

Which class are you betraying? While it is certainly true that union administrators feather their nests, only the most gross ignorance could claim that unionization has had no benefit for workers


Again, bullshit.
Are you a competent and hard-working individual, who wants your co-workers to be competent and hard-working individuals? Then you don't want a union. Because unions exist to block rewards for talent and initiative, and to protect the lazy and incompetent from being fired.

To the extent the do anything to help their members, it's by keeping non-members from being able to join the union and compete for jobs.

Unions don't grow the pie, they shrink it, take as big a cut of what's left, and then try to re-direct all of what they couldn't get to the workers.

Based on seniority, not competence or quality of work.

unions suck

Bunkypotatohead म्हणाले...

There used to be a joke about how when everyone had a college education, then McDonald's could start requiring a degree in order to flip burgers.
It appears we're almost at that point, except Starbux doesn't even need to to demand a degree. The college grads are working there voluntarily. Once they unionize, how long until robo-baristas become the norm? Starbux can become a giant sized version of coffee vending machines with wifi.

devils advocate म्हणाले...

but the real problem I have been taught by memes is that the minimum wage is only $7.25

(and why does a guy earning more than he has ever earned need a union so badly? maybe he thinks if they are crazy enough to pay $15.50 they could pay $20 . . .)

stlcdr म्हणाले...

Bunkypotatohead said...
There used to be a joke about how when everyone had a college education, then McDonald's could start requiring a degree in order to flip burgers.
It appears we're almost at that point, except Starbux doesn't even need to to demand a degree. The college grads are working there voluntarily. Once they unionize, how long until robo-baristas become the norm? Starbux can become a giant sized version of coffee vending machines with wifi.

4/28/22, 11:13 PM

In Italy, in a lot of places, they literally have vending machines which can make espresso, cappuccino, etc. and is very good at it. Italians like their coffee. The Germans, too. Have you seen some of those machines? The only work you need to do is put a cup under it and press a button. Grinds the beans, pressurize, etc. indeed, even in airport lounges the coffee makers with touch screens do a great job.

Robert Cook म्हणाले...

"Just where the fuck did you get the idea that businesses---whether sole proprietor, partnerships, LLCs or corporations----are in any way "democratic" as opposed to hierarchical, or that the direction of the company is to be determined by its employees, and not the owners of the company itself?"

Where the fuck do the rabble get the idea their societies should be "in any way 'democratic' as opposed to hierarchical, or that the direction of the society should be determined by its citizens, and not kings, queens, emperors, etc.?

JES म्हणाले...

I feel for the kids with $200,000 student loans. No one told them the truth that they can't earn enough with their art history master's degree to pay it back. High education is a business that is taking advantage of the student loans available. Someone, like parents, counselors, and especially the lenders should be held responsible. Not the government.

Robert Cook म्हणाले...

"As for protections against arbitrary or retaliatory dismissal, it's remarkable that you say here frequently that Twitter et al can stifle free speech and fire people for 'hate speech' [IOW non-woke speech] because they are not government entities...."

I don't recall ever making any comments about "Twitter et al," much less "frequently," or advocating people be fired for "hate speech." (I deplore "hate crimes" and the idea of "hate speech" (though there certainly is "hateful speech") or cheering on the firing of people accused of such. You have me confused with someone else.

However, the reality is that private companies do have control over their employers' speech, as the first amendment only applies to prohibitions on the government's behavior. In a workplace where the workers have a degree of say in their working conditions and requirements, they would have a say in what kind of speech or behavior would be acceptable or not, and on what sanctions, if any, should be applied against workers who breach the agreed upon standards of speech or behavior.

Advocating for citizens' freedom to live their lives as they wish does not mean no behavior can be punished, or that all are free to do as they wish, whatever harm may result. All governments, even in "free" societies, have some control over the behavior of their citizens, for the protection of the majority against harmful behavior by the minority.

Rusty म्हणाले...

Jeff Weimer said...
"If they were actually smart, they could skip the $1.50/hr raise at Starbucks and go into the trades. Just *think* of the unionization/guild creation opportunities in those most classic of workers occupations."
If you have skills your employer wants you to , you know, use them. All day.

rsbsail म्हणाले...

"More than three years after he earned a political science degree from Siena College in 2017, Brian Murray was making about $14 an hour as a youth counselor at a group home for middle-school-age children."

Can we stop calling it "political science?" There is no science in the study of politics.

mikee म्हणाले...

The universities that convinced government to pay for liberal arts classes at ever-increasing amounts need to be studied. How did they do that? Why? How much longer will it last before the whole edifice of university educations collapses? Fascinating stuff, student loans. I got mine, and thought they were a good deal for a Chemistry degree.

I used to dismay the students at my former colleges, who were paid to cold call alumni for donations, that at the age of 25, 30, 35, 40, I was still paying off student loans, and could not make a contribution until I was done with that burden. My loans were all under 3%, having been taken out in the early Pleistocene, and were deferred without interest for about 8 years, due to various grad school and postdoc and government work, so paying the minimum each month was the logical thing to do, but completing the payoff at 42 years old and telling that to freshman was shocking to their young souls.

Kids should be taught how compound interest works.

Joanne Jacobs म्हणाले...

The story lumps together under "college-educated" a man who "attended community college" and a woman with a bachelor's in music education and a master's in opera performance. Not the same educational or social class, though equally unprepared for the job market.

Another person cited has a bachelor's and master's in education. No explanation of why this person can't get a teaching job.

Most students don't borrow heavily for an undergrad degree. The big debtors went to grad school or got a business, law or medical degree. Most are high er-than-average earners.