[BartSimpson]

Dirty Jobs creator on the need for skilled tradespeople in America

Cory Doctorow at 6:25 AM Friday, May 13, 2011

Mike Rowe, creator of the TV show "Dirty Jobs," testified before the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation on the de-skilling of America, and the way in which skilled manual labor has been undervalued and derided in the USA to its detriment:

Mike Rowe wrote:

A few months ago in Atlanta I ran into Tom Vilsack, our Secretary of Agriculture. Tom told me about a governor who was unable to move forward on the construction of a power plant. The reason was telling. It wasn't a lack of funds. It wasn't a lack of support. It was a lack of qualified welders.

In high schools, the vocational arts have all but vanished. We've elevated the importance of "higher education" to such a lofty perch that all other forms of knowledge are now labeled "alternative." Millions of parents and kids see apprenticeships and on-the-job-training opportunities as "vocational consolation prizes," best suited for those not cut out for a four-year degree. And still, we talk about millions of "shovel ready" jobs for a society that doesn't encourage people to pick up a shovel.

In a hundred different ways, we have slowly marginalized an entire category of critical professions, reshaping our expectations of a "good job" into something that no longer looks like work. A few years from now, an hour with a good plumber -- if you can find one -- is going to cost more than an hour with a good psychiatrist. At which point we'll all be in need of both.

I came here today because guys like my grandfather are no less important to civilized life than they were 50 years ago. Maybe they're in short supply because we don't acknowledge them they way we used to. We leave our check on the kitchen counter, and hope the work gets done. That needs to change.

[Lemmy]

Thank computers in the highschool shops. We've created a generation that can design a virtual house but can't pound a nail.

[Bruce_the_vii]

They have this myth circulating in Canada as well. It doesn't make sense. Canadian youth want to have a good job and know the trades pay well. They know the university route often doesn't work out these days. One thing that comes up is that the construction industry has had shortages for a long time. It's the same in Australia as well. People say the construction industry pays well, sign up. However construction is hard work, seasonal, by contract and cyclical. People say sign up for a construction job forgetting the winter layoff and etc.

[andyt]

When the prize is to be a Wall street shark, and the wage spread between CEO's and workers is as huge as it is now, no wonder that's where everybody is aiming for. Just as the sciences have lost some of the brightest mathematical minds because there were such huge bucks to be made in making up phony investment products to sell. It's the society that Reaganism wrought, with a skew in values. The collapse of the union movement didn't help either, since it lowered wages for these sorts of jobs. The great expansion of the middle class was exactly when these sorts of jobs started to pay a decent wage, the collapse was when the opposite started to happen. But why worry, we're now a post industrial, knowledge based, service oriented economy, so these sorts of jobs aren't really needed. Or so we've been told by the economists.

[CommanderSock]

Bruce_the_vii wrote:

They have this myth circulating in Canada as well. It doesn't make sense. Canadian youth want to have a good job and know the trades pay well. They know the university route often doesn't work out these days. One thing that comes up is that the construction industry has had shortages for a long time. It's the same in Australia as well. People say the construction industry pays well, sign up. However construction is hard work, seasonal, by contract and cyclical. People say sign up for a construction job forgetting the winter layoff and etc.

^^This is truth.

I can speak for myself, my parents always pushed me to get an education, so at 18 years old, I was accepted into a local college for Electrical Engineering, and two universities for Economics or Architecture.

I chose economics. Why? Pretiege of having a university degree in Economics over a trade skill. Finance was is "in" .

Was it a good decision? Well I can't say because I cannot say how electrical engineering at a college would have played out. But I do know a job in the field could fetch me $80,000 - $100,000 per annum in Alberta or SK where they are short of tradespeople.

Would I advise people to trades or university?

I say do what makes you happy first and foremost, and make sure it pays somewhat.

[PublicAnimalNo9]

When I was living in Windsor, the two richest guys in that city were a tool and die man and the contractor that built his factory and $7,000,000 home.

[andyt]

Electrician is a trade. I don't think electrical engineering is.

[CommanderSock]

andyt wrote:

Electrician is a trade. I don't think electrical engineering is.

http://www.humber.ca/program/electrical ... tems-co-op

This was the program.

[stokes]

I graduated HS in 1993, and all of the lectures our guidance counsellors gave us was to attend a University as opposed to a techincal school or college. I went the technical route and have not been without a job since, a lot of my peers who have BA's in basketweaving have spent a fair amount unemployed unless they worked in the oil sands.

Also our infrastructure is crumbling and we need hard working trades people who will suck it up and get the job done!!

[andyt]

stokes wrote:

Also our infrastructure is crumbling and we need hard working trades people who will suck it up and get the job done!!

To do that job we need govt to spend the money, instead of porkbarelling Reformacon ridings, building playgrounds and such. Amazing how we could build up a country like Canada and then just sit back and let it rot claiming we have no money, when we're making more money than ever. We're just not willing to spend it on important things, and heavens the rich might have to pay a bit more tax.

We had a premier in BC, WAC (Wacky) Bennet. Social Credit, ie rightwinger, but he also knew the importance of infrastructure. He nationalized (provincialized?) BC Hydro and BC Rail, built a ton of dams and roads. The new style righwingers (call themselves Liberals but aren't) sit back and coast, have fantasies about PPP's, lower taxes and let the infrastructure collapse. We're now a net importer of electricity in BC, what a joke.

The working people don't need to suck it up, building infrastructure would provide good jobs at good pay - nothing to suck up. The rich need to suck it up and put more back into the country.

Crumbling infrastructure is just another legacy of Reaganomics - starve the govt.

[CommanderSock]

stokes wrote:

I graduated HS in 1993, and all of the lectures our guidance counsellors gave us was to attend a University as opposed to a techincal school or college. I went the technical route and have not been without a job since, a lot of my peers who have BA's in basketweaving have spent a fair amount unemployed unless they worked in the oil sands.

Also our infrastructure is crumbling and we need hard working trades people who will suck it up and get the job done!!

Lol good point, what is the definition of "BA Basketweaving", do you mean English/Art/Polisci etc?

I think finance is a pretty solid degree, and the job prospects aren't bad at all, and that is where many people drift now, as it is where the money is.

andyt wrote:

stokes wrote:

Also our infrastructure is crumbling and we need hard working trades people who will suck it up and get the job done!!

To do that job we need govt to spend the money, instead of porkbarelling Reformacon ridings, building playgrounds and such. Amazing how we could build up a country like Canada and then just sit back and let it rot claiming we have no money, when we're making more money than ever. We're just not willing to spend it on important things, and heavens the rich might have to pay a bit more tax.

We had a premier in BC, WAC (Wacky) Bennet. Social Credit, ie rightwinger, but he also knew the importance of infrastructure. He nationalized (provincialized?) BC Hydro and BC Rail, built a ton of dams and roads. The new style righwingers (call themselves Liberals but aren't) sit back and coast, have fantasies about PPP's, lower taxes and let the infrastructure collapse. We're now a net importer of electricity in BC, what a joke.

The working people don't need to suck it up, building infrastructure would provide good jobs at good pay - nothing to suck up. The rich need to suck it up and put more back into the country.

Crumbling infrastructure is just another legacy of Reaganomics - starve the govt.

Unchecked government spending was a hallmark of Raeganomics. The debt actually increased under him. Especially the military sector.

Privatization works when population density is very high. But in the case of Canada, we do need heavy government intervention otherwise. Private companies don't see returns in many large capital projects.

[andyt]

the military sector is a very poor job creator vs civilian. I seem to remember it was something on the order of 100 to 1.

Raygun snd subsequent regimes may have spent, but it wasn't on infrastructure. That's where the 'peace dividend" was to go, but people sure got pissed at Clinton when he tried that.

There's an idea that righwing govts purposely increase the debt so that eventually the govt will collapse, and they can build their neocon eden out of the rubble.

[Bodah]

A colleague of mine recently recounted of story of her and her husband meeting with their son's guidance councillor. In a negative way she told them your son might be bested suited for a trade such as electrician or plumber she said apologetically.

The husband piped back, "what's wrong with that ? They make at least 3 x the salary of a guidance councillor."

When I was in High School trades or shop class was thought of for the metal meat heads and had bad connotations. So I was suprised to see this attitude is still prevelant.

Educators have to stop bashing trades. If it wasn't for them they wouldn't be able to take a dump in their houses at 3 in the morning.

[BartSimpson]

Good gravy Andy, blaming Reagan for something that started over a century ago?

Give it a rest, huh? The man is dead, isn't that enough?

[BartSimpson]

Bodah wrote:

Educators have to stop bashing trades.

Exactly. It's this strange syndrome among 'educators' that says every kid has to have a liberal arts degree or else they'll be 'unenlightened'.

Sadly in the USA when we need a plumber or other tradesman we end up relying on immigrants whose knowledge and execution of our building codes is less than stellar.