Some thoughts about labor in honor of the day from Jorts the Cat.
The quote comes from a thread in 2023 about what constitutes a fair wage for Waffle House workers. It begins:
If I weigh in much on the waffle house discourse I may start screaming and never stop. We NEED to want more for each other, instead of acting like dumbass crabs pulling each other back into a corporate greed bucket.
I see a lot of "I make $25 doing [insert profession] so there's no way waffle house workers should make this much"
Why? What makes you need their wage to be specifically less than yours? Need someone to look down on? Are you better off if their kids are hungrier than yours?
The more I live life, the more I am convinced that there is no such thing as unskilled labor. If a job needs to be done, and it is possible to do that job well or poorly, then that job requires skill. Insisting that there are certain distinctions which make some labor more valuable than other kinds is, in the end, validating a system where one feel justified in looking down on others and not caring if their children are hungrier than yours.
As Jorts says - - rather bluntly - -
We NEED to want more for each other, instead of acting like dumbass crabs pulling each other back into a corporate greed bucket.
With that in mind, here are some of the kinds of work my family members have done, going back about one hundred years:
Blacksmith
Proprietor of a livery stable
Proprietress of a boarding house
Disaster relief
Ballroom dancing instructor
Special Agent, IRS
Marriage counselor and family planning counselor
Amphitheater construction, WPA
Staff Sergeant, Army of the Occupation
Teacher in private girls’ school
Naval officer
Paid companion/nanny
Production planner, aircraft plant
Doctor’s secretary
Computer programmer, sales, computer product design
Waitress
Hospital orderly
Cook and housekeeper
Clerical temporary worker
Camp counselor
Library circulation coordinator
College professor
Special education teacher and advocate
Early childhood educator
All of these jobs were doing something that needed to be done and it made a difference whether they were done well or poorly. I don’t look at the list and feel the need to sort it into categories according to respectable/less respectable or manual vs skilled.
What does matter to me is whether people were able to make enough money to get by, if they had safe working conditions and were treated fairly. Did they have opportunities to make choices, to learn more, to increase their skills? Were they then able to pursue jobs that meant more to them and/or worked better for them and their families?
Isn’t that what we all want?
We need to honor all labor and see the desire to be fairly compensated as reasonable for everyone. We need to want more for each other.
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