U.S. Secretary of Commerce says the ‘new model’ is factory jobs for life—for you, your kids, and your grandkids
U.S. Secretary of Commerce says the ‘new model’ is factory jobs for life—for you, your kids, and your grandkids
So slavery as indentured servitude is the American future. Way to "new model" the old model.
Cool. You go first, asshole. >:(
(Not you, OP, you're cool.)
Well, we do not know. OP may actually be the new secretary of commerce.
The factory jobs that existed in post-war America would be a vast improvement over the current service economy, but those jobs don’t exist anymore. Union jobs with high pay, benefits, retirement after 20 years, etc. Those are not the factory jobs they’re looking to create.
Factories are mostly automated now anyway. Rebuilding US manufacturing will not only take years but it will be done in a way that minimizes the actual jobs created. They’ll also still have to compete with factories all over the world where the currency is worth much less and the global price of the end product reflects that.
Post-war America had a strong domestic market and middle class that could afford to buy all the things American manufacturing built. Americans are now buying groceries on layaway and waiting for the sickness or car trouble or new Trump policy that makes them homeless.
And those jobs weren't good because they were in a factory, they were good because they were union.
Still, safety standards were far from ideal at that time
The reality is that the job is kind of irrelevant. We had a manufacturing economy then, and a service based economy now, but the real difference between today and back then were wage strength and social parity. Of course pensions existed too, but still.
Back in the day one man could make enough to support a family on a relatively entry level skill level income. Today one person can hardly afford rent by themselves anywhere in the US for the same skill level of work.
Instead of paying people any more than absolutely necessary, we pay shareholders. No pensions, let alone benefits for a lot of people.
We need taxes on the wealthy and higher wages, if not legally mandatory profit sharing schemes for all businesses
Preach! I have an advanced degree in a technical field and I earn (adjusted for inflation) about 75% of what my father did in the same industry doing similar work without even a GED. The real punch to the gut is I live in a high cost of living area while he worked in a very low cost of living area. Thanks, capitalism!
Factory jobs used to consist of one person being able to move about and do various jobs. I may be misremembering, but I believe it was Ford (who was not exactly a great person, go search) who stuck each individual in one place doing one minute part of an overall job. Having worked in a couple of factories, one of which was very well paid, it was mind- crushingly boring. And 1/2 hour meals with coworkers was sniping and backbiting other coworkers. I liked repairs better because it was variable, and I got to go to storage and look for things so I could move away from my station.
QA was probably the most soul-crushing, except for that one factory, that didn't pay well, had everyone on mandatory 7 days, 8+ for about two months at the time my supervisor tried to write me up for being absent the days with the flu, with a doctor's note. I walked off the job that day and was hired at a nearby competitor the next day, and given a start bonus, told to come in the following Monday. I loved that super, the pay was great, but it still was not great.
They say factory jobs but really they mean mining/oil towns, where everything is controlled by the mining/oil companies that still exists in some parts of Africa and Latin America.
They'll enslave every last person on the planet if you let them. You have to fight back, or that's your future. That's everyone's future.
That’s rich coming from a group of people who haven’t collectively worked a single day in their lives.
What factory jobs?
The ones that he also said will all be automated.
The ones where Big Brother will torture and kill you for refusing
YOU AND YOUR FAMILY FIRST, ASSHOLE.
The USSR had lifetime factory jobs, too.
The USSR didn't have any limits to choosing an employment since shortly after WW2, what are you talking about? By the late 70s, around 10% of positions in the economy were vacant and there was full employment, and people weren't forced to work anywhere. The average unemployment duration was 15 days.
Please, what's your source on your claim?
The USSR didn’t have any limits to choosing an employment
You were distributed to a place by the state after finishing your education. If you left that place too soon, you'd be frowned upon and that'd be mirrored in your labor book (USSR had such a document, basically a dossier documenting your whole history of employment with characteristics, you could get such a "flattering" characteristic by a superior not liking you that you'd never be accepted to a good place after, and you couldn't refuse or lose a record in your labor book).
and people weren’t forced to work anywhere.
Being unemployed for too long was literally, seriously, illegal in the USSR. Google for "тунеядство".
People with something really bad in their labor books (say, dissidents) or some other necessary documents (being German after the war, being Jewish in a wrong period of time) had problems finding a place that would accept them, and would sometimes be prosecuted for being unemployed (that was usually informal employment, because you still had to eat something).
But in general yes, some kind of employment was always possible. Dying from hunger or being homeless was almost ruled out. Most of the population lived in some sort of "acceptable poverty" - conditions very bad by US measure, but with the previous correction. That's sort of one good thing that most people from ex-USSR agree on.
So if I wanted to change jobs or quit a job to go into higher education, do you know if that was possible, how hard was it to do? Because available positions does not equal job mobility, as you need permission from the factory manager and the state and those are harder to get when qualified workers are scarce.
He means while they're still kids btw
Ok, so a few points, from a lifelong industrial OEM technician:
First of all, there's nothing wrong with factory jobs IF your employer takes care of its workers, that's a big "if" but one all the world's workers should take care of, since manufacturing is of course one of the biggest areas of employment and it's not going away anytime soon.
My job, working for an equipment manufacturer, can be quite enjoyable and well paid, again depending on the employer, I'd advice any technically inclined individual to look into it. St the same time, I'd never work as a maintenance tech in a factory, that's usually a very stressful job, with emergency work in poor condition, often pushed to work unsafely because of the rush, on old machines often dirty or in poor repair.
Still, I've seen some people make quite a comfortable position in that setting, so it may not be all bad.
As for pay, I think pay should depend mostly on 3 factors: effort, skill and comfort. Those who work harder, are more skilled and are forced into unpleasant settings should be paid more. If you want a more comfortable job you cannot expect to make more than a good, equally skilled worker who's in noisy, dangerous or disgusting environments, and so on.
I don't understand the intergenerational employment point, that sounds sorta dystopic and has no connection to the rest of the argument.
I didn't realize that I could be a toolmaker when I grew up until I was already grown up.
I fucking love my job. If I had realized how cool this job was when I was in high school I'd be one of the most well paid people in my field right now. As it is I'm just doing pretty well.
Industrial jobs definitely aren't for everyone, but that's literally any job. I left a comfortable office job for the trades because those jobs aren't for everyone either. And I'm far happier for it.
How is it possible to avoid repetitive stress injury on an assembly line? Seems inevitable.
Aside from what @SoleInvictus@lemmy.blahaj.zone wrote, ideally we'll reduce human labor to overseeing machines, at least on industrial lines, over time.
Great question. Work-related musculoskeletal disorders are more difficult to avoid when tasks are repetitive, forceful, and/or use a limited range of motion. Implementing a "stretch and flex" type program, completing thorough ergonomic evaluations (and actually following through with their findings), and rotating workers through various tasks that change the motions performed and body parts being stressed will knock down injuries considerably.
I only contract in upstate NY but the manufacturing facilities were specifically placed in areas that will support the bare minimum wage and consistently have supply and or facility issues due to the location. A major pharma organization draining water towers. A large toothpaste manufacturer neglecting PRVs the decades and constantly shooting silica's into the air.
I see great potential in these facilities but i am ALWAYS reminded of the shit business practices i see even when they cause the company to lose money.
Sure some of these places will prosper but most will crumble inside 5 years and displace a lot of people.
You won’t be well paid, you will not have benefits, you will be forbidden from unionizing, you will have very little say about the particular job you work or the schedule you’re given. You’ll take what you get or starve in the streets. It’s disingenuous to act like “factory work” will resemble the good factory jobs that currently exist.
If that's what it takes for Americans to reach their limit and claw back some dignity from their owners...
Yeah you and your kids and their kids... All slaving away in poor conditions, at the same time.
No retirement for the old. Child labor. Shitty conditions with zero worker protections. Low pay to keep you in poverty. All while the rich sit on their lazy fat asses like the parasites they are...
How bout that American Dream? How bout that upward mobility? Fuck you, Howard Buttlick.
That shit died, or suffered a major blow under Reagan. It's only been downhill since. I'm old enough to remember the yearly increases to the federal minimum wage before they stopped all that at like $7.25. I think my first job paid $6.40. Every time this dude is on TV he's grinning like some doofus or laughing too hard from the lukewarm farts leaking from trump's mouth.
With good union representation, right?
Oh, cool. We're going backwards. That's fun.
The (R) next to their name means "reverse", like an automobile's transmission.
Since the New Deal the goal of the capitalist class has been a slow crawl back to slavery. Couldnt do it too fast. Had to take it slow.
No taxes for the rich and businesses. No rights for workers. And eventually No pay or choice for them either.
That beyond all the other myriad failures of this country is why I hate it so much and why I long to see it fall.
And it's all been fully Bipartisan. Republicans advance the goals of oligarchy by leaps. Democrats are the vanguard that protects the rich and the corrupt. They stop all of us from making things better. Social and cultural issues are ephemeral at best. Ultimately unimportant to the oligarchy beyond their utility as a tool of control and coercion. There is no morality involved. There is just greed and corruption.
ha. see, the thing is... no. make me. i got a bullet for every single fucking one of you that tries to fuck my genuinely good life up. i figured out how to escape this shit life and i'm never going back. i ain't got no kids so i don't have to worry about any of this. yall have all fucked this world up beyond recognition and i will fucking kill you if you try to drag me down into your bullshit.
That’s the thing, they don’t care if you work there, they won’t make you, you’ll just starve to death in the street or die from lack of medical care or some previously preventable problem. You likely would never be forced to work but not working will be essentially choosing slow suicide
Strip me off my decent life and try to make me work labor. I will. But my incompetence will be the greatest incompetence. My wages will do nothing but pay for my mistakes and I will just keep making them.
This was always the goal. Serfdom in a different package.
I think in a other timeline I'd be very happy working in a factory for my career. Building something or maintaining the systems. Putting in a hard days work and going home feeling proud I did a good job.
Supporting my 2 kids, stay at home wife and owning my own home with only my income.
My kids needs were all met. All utilities paid up, school supplies and toys, fridge always fully stocked.
My job was secure. 20+ years at the company with a competative salary. My job is secure and safe with my union protecting me. Might retire in 30 or so years with a solid pension and a cool 50 at the factory.
No need to get a job after I retire. Just enjoy my time with my new grandkids my children are happy to have in a strong economy.
But. We're not in the fucking twilight zone.
The American Dream was taken from the masses and they want us "back on the line" for pennies on the dollar in profits.
"I make a penny while the boss makes a dime. That's why I sit on company time."
No. We now make a penny while the CEOs make thousands and were left hungry, homeless and sick.
Get the fuck out of here with that shit.
And while you'd be OK with one job for life, for many of us, that's a vision of living hell, no matter how good the working conditions might be. And those working conditions would be shit. Nutlick's "vision" is of multigenerational wage slavery, with no environmental or safety protections, no constraints on abusive employment practices, nothing but immiseration.
Are you taking orders? Or are you taking over?
The Children Yearn for the Mines!
I hope he gets what he deserves.
The children yearn for the minesfactories.
Seems that they want to repeat the USSR of 70s, just capitalist and without the revolution and industrialization and mass repressions preceding stages, and rather right-wing.
Maybe they want that to avoid the same fate due to avoiding state capitalism and overregulation combined with politics inside the bureaucratic machine. If they are moderately smart.
Or maybe they just want to repeat the same track with modern technologies. Then it'll suck.
Whether you want them or not.
NGL I'm envisioning The Factory as in SCP 001
WorryFree
WorryFree™
Bold of you to assume that I'm having kids. Actually, not having kids is probably the best way to give these assholes the middle finger.
We should collectively refuse to have kids to prevent that from happening and make the whole thing come crashing down.
I'm no fan of Lutnick, but equating a lifelong factory job repairing robots to indentured servitude is nutty.
Saying three generations will be factory-bound is what's nutty. I don't care what you call it.
"There's been too much upward mobility in class in the last 100 years. You people need to know your place in society as the modern version of drudge workers. You'll be doing this same work for your entire life, and you'll produce children that will do your work when you die, and they'll produce children to do the work when they die. This is perfection in society where your entire bloodline will stay in your level in life for the entirety. We, your betters, will maintain the level of aristocracy and lead this nation and assume its wealth." - Lutnick probably
It IS indentured servitude, if the pay is just enough to keep you alive but little else. Especially since the corporations making the robots also have an effective monopoly on all the other goods and services, or they're damn near close to it.
Uncritically repeating the lie that they're going to create tons of robot repair jobs
This is why, when you say you're not a fan, I don't believe you.
