Thursday, December 22, 2005

Class War: It's On, Baby

In response to this:
From GEORGE ZACHAR: We learned in January that New York City newspaper hawkers earning $9 an hour were making more than Guild members at the Youngstown Ohio Vindicator.

Now, thanks to David Cay Johnston's research, we know that the average Wall Street Journal reporter makes about as much the average (striking) New York City bus driver, roughly $55,000 a year.

No doubt the various benefit and pension plans differ greatly, but it is still a sobering statistic.
Atrios writes:
Why is this a sobering statistic aside from the general belief that anyone who is a part of the "professional class" is intrinsically deserving of making more money than those who aren't?

There's a really weird class resentment going on. White collar workers "know" they deserve more money than blue collar workers. Some blue collar workers, ones in unions and skilled workers, can make decent money. Since a lot of white collar workers actually don't get paid very well, they resent the hell out of the fact that some uneducated lout gets to buy a nicer house than they do. And, thus, we get the out of touch media coverage of the NYC transit strike.
The bizarre flip side to this is the typical white-collar sneer whenever the idea of unionizing is brought up. As if unions were only good for guys who swing wrenches. Morons of the world, wake up! Your boss might like you, but his job is to fire you if you get too expensive. If you like getting paid crap for your work, then fine. But I'd only point out that, at this minute you could make more working for Starbucks than the guild members at the Youngstown Ohio Vindicator. Kind of makes your student loans seem worthless, don't it?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

yeah right.
nobody in there right(or left) mind would ever happilly consider working as a coffee slave just after finishing 4 tough years - acheiving their degree in something completely non applicable to anywhere else but university
academia, no matter what the pay is! stop looking at how 'well' some super conglomerate is treating there slav - i mean staff as any incentive at all...if you want to fight for change, fight for a piece and not for hand me downs like health coverage and vacations...crumbs! and who cares how much a wall street journalist gets paid! they're there to record news not be it, make it or sell it, if everyone stopped comparing these piddly wages, and focused on real issues, like the redistribution of the large moneys that have no business being at the disposal of the very priviledged few, we might get a wedge into some substantial change. but as long as other people dictate to you what your policy has to be or what to expect from policy makers & enforcers, we will never make any realistic change. shit you need permission to host this show!
money isn't knowledge or growth, decent wages and promotions are just a few carrots daggling on a string...change requires more than just new financial gain for a few 1000 people. work to own! without the workers there ain't shit being done! why do a few memembers of any company brass (prez, vice prez etc.) live the sweet high life while the people who actually run the production, from cars to earplugs get the 'sorry but after all the years you've shown us nothing but pure obidience, we're closing your section down and replacing you with few tidal wave survivors in indo to work for 10 bottle caps a day'(really what are going to do with 20 cents an hour?). collectively the workers have the keys to all doors, machines and the full knowledge on how to run the show - but some rich guy shakes some other rich guys hand over a catered lunch at a 5 star and BAM 1200 people jobless - and its all our fault cause we let them tell us "hey, business is business" or "this is my property! all 100 acres! MINE! MINE! MINE!"
or "i'm the boss."
no one is anyone's boss.
and if one were to ever come into the position of boss remember that everything can be made easier if you treat people with the respect you hope you deserve. and then kill all the suits and divide the whole company up equally.

UNION is a strong word.
UNION does not mean satisfied with my place under the thumb of some archaic, monarchistic, hierarchy
posing as entrepreneurship.

and UNION still means pawn if all you're getting out of it is an extra 2 weeks vacation in february.