this post was submitted on 14 Apr 2024
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You can criticize the way we name things, but the fact remains that the distinction between "skilled" and "unskilled" labour is a useful one and will continue to exist regardless of what you decide to call it. I feel like this comment is just a distraction from the real problem you intend to draw attention to, which I'm guessing is low wages.
It will continue to exist because it's useful for the ruling class.
Terms like "unskilled labor" help the media do their job, which is helping capital convince the masses that the "unskilled laborers" are speaking above their station when asking for a livible wage.
It's "burger flippers" for people who want to call themselves more politically literate. Language currently used to minimize and undermine.
It will definitely continue to exist, but acting like there aren't connotations here or that they aren't directly related to the "real problem of low wages" is wack
They also exist because there's important differences to the jobs. For example, in how you hire. If you're looking for "unskilled" workers, you can cast a wide net with the job ad and hit mostly the relevant audience. You can go up to anyone looking for a job and offer them said job. If you need a bigger pool of people to hire from, you can make changes that have almost immediate impact (e.g. increasing benefits, working conditions, marketing). For "skilled" labour, there's fewer people in the pool to hire from, so you want to go directly to where they're being trained (e.g. job fairs at universities or trade schools), and if you need to increase the pool you can hire from, that has delayed effects since you need to wait for people to go through their training.
I was not aware of the negative connotation though, so I'll keep that in mind. I don't think changing the word itself is going to do anything about that though. Connotation will follow unless you change people's attitudes towards these jobs. I don't know how you would do that though. Any ideas?
No, I'm criticising the fact that the term devalues both the labour put in by people, as well as devaluing the people themselves. You can't deny that we as a society look down at certain jobs, both in terms of the jobs being unsavoury (handling refuse, cleaning, etc.).
I'm a software developer, my roomie is a truck driver. We don't get the same reactions when we introduce ourselves and talk about our jobs. We don't have the same wages or working conditions either. I have a fixed, yet relaxed schedule, and I can plonk around with my job more or less any time I feel like it. My roomie went to bed at eight today because he has to get up at three, by the time I get up he'll have worked for four hours. He most likely won't be home until five, about the time I close my laptop and start cooking, provided I haven't already started that. Somehow I'm paid more. I'm perceived as more intelligent, and my work is held in higher regard, despite the fact that business grind to a halt and people go without food if my roomie doesn't do his job. He doesn't "just" drive from point A to point B, just like I don't "just" stare at a monitor all day.
Drivers are not unskilled though.
I see what you mean with certain jobs being perceived negatively. Maybe the messaging should be about the value of "unskilled" labour/labourers rather than saying that there's no such thing as "unskilled" labour? To me, the latter implies that there's nothing distinguishing "skilled" and "unskilled" labour. The only people who would understand what you're really trying to say are those who are part of your circle spreading the "message", and thus it only serves the purpose of saying "I'm on team X! Anyone else?"
No, when I say “unskilled labour isn’t a thing” that’s also precisely what I mean. The term indicates that you do not require any sort of skill before doing it; a literal infant could do it. As far as I am aware, no such labour actually exists.
Are we saying that certain labour requires formal education? Why wouldn’t we simply use a term reflecting that, in that case? I don’t have any formal education in software development, I am entirely autodidact. A profession born from too much free time and not enough friends. Now I’m a professional dev, making software that is core to operations to one of the biggest (in terms of GDP) corporations in my country.
Is my job then unskilled labour, or am I an unskilled labourer performing skilled labour? In which case, can the labour really be that skilled if an unskilled labourer can do it? If say a taxi driver helps deliver a baby, does that make obstetrics a non-skilled profession, or is it just the birthing part that doesn’t require skill? For that matter, my roomie did actually go through a one year course before he got his trucking license, does that make it a skilled profession?
It’s a nonsense term. Unskilled labour isn’t a thing; all labour require a measure of skill.
Everything requires skills, yes. Some skills take longer to acquire. It's the difference between taking a random adult on the street and teaching them to perform a job within a week versus a year or more. Whether or not you're self taught doesn't change the fact that it didn't take you a week to learn to code and it's not something that's part of a standard curriculum most adults would've gone through.
If you don't think "unskilled" reflects this distinction properly, suggestions for alternatives are welcome. But I still think this is a distraction from the main problem.
Maybe specialized vs general labour?
Sorry, but a shovel is unskilled labour. A forklift driver is absolutely not. In the sense that you quite literally need prior qualifications in order to do it, it's not something any basically functioning adult can do with on-the-job training.
I've never heard of someone working as a shovel. That said, being able to shovel stuff all day without hurting yourself definitely takes skill.
You ever why people don't take you seriously? Its because you say shit like "forklift operators are skilled labour".
Using the definition provided by @damnedfurry@lemmy.world (appearing as "ObjectivityIncarnate"), yes, they meet that definition. Forklift drivers are not trained on the job, they need a specific licence. That makes it not unskilled labour.
You're equivocating "skilled" in the same way the OP of this comment chain was to "unskilled". You're doing the equivalent of saying "a feather can't be dark, because feathers are light." Stop playing stupid semantic games.
In the context of labor metrics, "skilled" and "unskilled" are not descriptors of overall difficulty. I've already posted a reminder of what the terms mean in this context above your comment, so there's no excuse.
Your "reminder" is horseshit.
lol, you gave me the mental image of someone opening the dictionary to look up a word, seeing its definition, then scoffing as you point at it, saying "That's horseshit!"
These the same dictionaries carry identical definitions for "irregardless" and "regardless"? Anyways defining fork and spoon operators as "skilled" is literally horseshit, I don't care about your labored justifications.
Your comment has been removed due to using a slur. Please be more inclusive of our friends and allies with mental disabilities in the future.
Your comment has been removed due to using a slur. Please be more inclusive of our friends and allies with mental disabilities in the future.
Unskilled is the term they use to replace underpaid. So I think it is important to stop using it so people know what's really happening. Unskilled implies that they don't deserve a lot of money but that's not the case at all.
Specialized vs general labour?
My point is, if we care about what we call this, then just pick something and move on to solving the real problem.
Yes. The only unskilled labor is management.
I don't think so, having been in both sides of the coin, a worker and a manager, there's a skill to dealing with people especially those who think they're better them what they are.
Along with dealing with all the internal interpsonal issues you have outside forces you need to deal with to ensure that those you manage have a job next week