[e40]

And part of telling them not to do those jobs was the college for everyone idea. It was a good ideal, but the problem is, going to college and getting that English 4-year degree doesn't really help you get a job that pays enough to pay off those student loans and save for retirement.

What they said on Prairie Home Companion was correct, everyone does thing their child is exceptional and should go to college instead of trade school.

The truth is, some of those people working at Starbucks for minimum page, with huge debt, would be far better off had they gone to a trade school and be pulling down serious money as an electrician, etc.

[49531]

I agree that stigmatizing trades has contributed to this issue, but we've also simultaneously made trades worse by allowing their unions to decay and be deregulating the industries that use them.

[godzillabrennus]

Over the last 40 years the trades also had influx of illegal immigrants entering the profession. These have been folks who were willing to do the very difficult work for less pay and no recourse if the conditions were unsafe.

Obviously not all trades as most firms won’t gamble using unlicensed electricians and plumbers. On the other hand roofing, drywall, concrete, etc... have been more readily given to folks who work for pennies on the dollar.

[lotsofpulp]

I've seen, for routine work, the licensed plumber or electrician just signs off on work (doesn't even inspect it) and gets paid for being licensed and the actual worker gets a cut of that.

[49531]

Which I would argue is only possible _because_ unions have mostly disintegrated. Scabs are a lot harder to hire, especially illegal immigrant scabs, if there's a union around to hold the company accountable.

[seanalltogether]

I live in a new build neighborhood that's been under construction for the last 5 years or so. For the 24 houses in my circle I've seen countless workers come and go and 4 changeovers in foremen, all voluntarily. How would you possibly unionize such a setup?

[CydeWeys]

Unionize the entire sector. This approach works well in many EU nations and used to work here too.

[mozumder]

OSHA has largely supplanted union safety regulations but the real issue killing this work is just workforce education.

We spend thousands to pay for 12 years of public education for each student to teach them things like Calculus and Geopolitics and Literature only for them to perform manual construction labor that an illegal immigrant from Central America with zero schooling can do?

Yah that’s not happening...

[greenhatman]

So why don't they just pay workers more if they need more.

Let demand drive price. This is a clear example of where you don't need a union. Because the companies will simply have to pay more. No need for a union to negotiate higher wages.

[logfromblammo]

The companies of 2018 are playing chicken with the labor market. They are not offering higher wages, betting that the workers will start to get hungry long before the stockholders start to notice that the cabana boy has been delivering smaller drinks to their beach chairs, at longer intervals.

They don't have to pay more. The stockholders just don't know of any place better to put their money right now. It's not like a startup could undercut and take all the business by choosing to funnel less profit towards the founders and investors. Investors won't invest in a risky venture unless you dangle a good rate of return in front of their faces. Established companies won't change course from a proven business plan.

If you pitch to investors a grocery store that will operate on a 1% profit margin instead of 2%, and give the difference to the store employees, in the form of living wages and solid benefits, you'll get laughed right out of the boardroom. If you instead walk in and say that the workers have cartelized, such that no existing store will have any employees unless it offers living wages and solid benefits, you're far more likely to get them.

[CydeWeys]

... they aren't paying workers more though, because there's no unions around to give the workers enough bargaining power. This is why unions are needed -- a random worker needs his job more than the company needs him, and is not on equal bargaining footage.

If your argument actually worked, then they would be paying workers more. But they aren't, so it doesn't work, and unions are needed.

[conanbatt]

If the companies could increase their profits by hiring more workers they would do it. Unless the union can sell the houses at a higher price or make its workers more productive, the union can't solve the equation.

[Bluecobra]

Maybe the federal government should get out of the loan business and make it legal to declare bankruptcy to escape student loan debt. Colleges have every incentive to enroll as many students as possible and charge whatever they want because the loans are guaranteed by wage garnishment.

This draws parallels to the easy credit that was extended in the last housing collapse to people that shouldn't had mortgages for houses they can't afford in the first place.

[e40]

YES! (says someone who didn't borrow a penny for college because it was $900/yr)