A small nit to pick about "...noisy, toxic, dirty factory jobs..." of the past

[SoCalDem]

and the gripe about "wanting to return to the 50's"


Many times, these were the ONLY jobs that a certain class of non-graduates or barely-graduateds could snag, and once in them, many learned responsibility and a trade which could then be parlayed into a small business of their own. (obviously not in the case of auto working or steel...but those were UNION jobs that at least traded higher pay for grubbier work)..

Fast-forward five decades, and you'll find that our education system has not improved all that much.. there are still millions of people who (for a multitude of reasons) are still not graduating or barely graduating, and all these people still need a path to earn money for themselves & the families they WILL create.

Add to this group the millions of people who started in factory work back then as a young person, and are now nearing their "dotage"... these people are still with us, and are still needing a means of support, even though their jobs may have "gone away".

Another factor is that the once "good enough to support a family wages" have withered on the vine & won't be coming back soon, which has forced women into the workforce competing for the same jobs as their spouses,teen children & parents. Same amount of jobs (or fewer) being sought after by 4 times as many individuals..and most of these jobs pay at or under $10 an hour with few, if any benefits.

These were jobs for what one author has called "throwaway people"...not that the people themselves were worthless, but the jobs they once did are now worthless. So worthless, in fact that they have left the country, in search of cheaper labor, somewhere else. Only the jobs that simply cannot "go away" have been left behind, and with a glut of people with few if any options, it's not hard to see the problem.

Progression stopped happening a pretty long time ago, and never really started back up. Innovation never stopped..the US just stopped "offering" innovation to the public in any manner other than "improving" the goods they were expected to buy.

The jobs the people were/are expected to do have improved slightly, but sometimes only the name of the position has changed. A secretary is now called an administrative assistant, a beautician is now a stylist, a cashier is now a sales associate, a waiter/waitress is a server, etc.

Bringing back dirty polluting factory jobs is not what's needed here, but there is no denying that there are millions of people here who are desperate to do work that will pay enough to at least put a roof over their heads and put food into the bellies of their family, and that should not be an impossibility in 2010.

No progressive/liberal "wants" to go back to the bad-old-days of inequality and turmoil, but are we to believe that we are unable to employ people unless we go back to depriving certain people of their liberty? Looking back to past errors is how we learn, but we seem to have learned little. We plow forward with little thought about how the changes we plan will affect the whole, and we are paying a pretty big price now.

The people who do work (and who need to work) are still here, it's just the jobs that have left.

[Oregone]

1. "No progressive/liberal "wants" to go back to the bad-old-days of inequality and turmoil"

Good thing we have equality now.

[texastoast]

2. We have more now than we did then

And the term sexual harassment has some teeth in it. Women can't be fired for being pregnant.

It's better. Not fixed, but better.

[uncommon]

4. At least on paper -

women still do lose their jobs or some of their standing if they get pregnant/have a baby.

It is still viewed as very much a woman's problem if she has a baby in this country.

[texastoast]

11. At least we have a leg to stand on to bring discrimination suits

and some employer guidelines that make it better than it was.

And I see a huge improvement in many American men's attitudes to help support the family in all ways. I'm proud of a lot of them.

[Oregone]

5. Than in the 50's?

Yeah, Im operating in the context of income equality

[kenny blankenship]

8. Yeah, except for income equality and educational equality and opportunity equality.

Income equality has reached pre-Depression levels and is getting worse. Can the children of the growing numbers of impoverished people look forward to days of greater freedom of opportunity for them? They have no reason to, unless they are counting on a revolution between now and the time they grow up.

[texastoast]

10. I didn't say it was fixed

It is better.

Still much much work to do. Sad to think of where we started.

And I hope the young women (and the men who support equality) know that it will continue to be a fight. There is no rest.

We need the ERA.

[kenny blankenship]

9. No Progressive/Liberal wants to go back to the bad old days when Labor had a voice to raise

No that would be extremely impolite! We've been working so hard to become socially acceptable, and SOME people want us to throw that all that hard-won acceptability away.

[uncommon]

3. A nit to pick ---

"Another factor is that the once "good enough to support a family wages" have withered on the vine & won't be coming back soon, which has forced women into the workforce competing for the same jobs as their spouses,teen children & parents. Same amount of jobs (or fewer) being sought after by 4 times as many individuals..and most of these jobs pay at or under $10 an hour with few, if any benefits."

Women went to work in droves in the 70s and 80s because WE WANTED TO. Household drudgery is not acceptable to most of us these days.

An economic system based on men working and women purchasing is what caused so much of our consumer culture - saying that women going to work contributed to the problem oversimplifies by assuming that their former role as "buyers" rather than earners was appropriate to begin with.

[Oregone]

6. You may of wanted to then, but you have to now

:(

Two income family is almost a necessity in most of the country now.

[SoCalDem]

7. Many women did want to work, but many did not..they were forced to

because the family income declined. Women in the workforce is not new..Family businesses always had "working women". Family income & buying power has declined..more people in a family have to bring in money..just to stay alive.

Women in the workforce is a good thing because they are no longer trapped into a rigid role, but there is also no denying that jobs continued to leave as more and more people continued to compete for the remaining ones..

[Sherman A1]

13. Agreed

[OHdem10]

12. Excellent post. May I add that along the way a decision was also

made that our economy would move from Mfg to a Service Economy.
This has really put us in a jam. Our Country is too large
to be supported by a Service Economy. Tourism and Financial
Industry just cannot cut it. It was oh so smart, let our
mfg go to extremely poor countries where the Transnationals
can pay slave wages and let Americans either work in banks
or wait tables. Brilliant( sarcasm). Look out for Business
amd throw the workers under the bus.

The chickens have come home to roost.

[onethatcares]

14. we're not even much of a service economy

if you understand what "servicing" means for a bull. Seems we get the stick.

Someone, somewhere decided we would become a "consumer" society. Now, it's pretty damn hard to keep the consumer engine hummng along if your locomotive is running out of coal(jobs and money).

Face it, the very wealthy treat this like a game, they don't feel the pain, their kids will never know want, and no one from thier family will die in a foriegn war unless they actually want to serve the country not just try to buy food for their families.

Peace.