Blue collar

So here is another embarrassing story from My Life.

When I was in the higher grades of high school I was thinking about what career I wanted to embark on, and what direction I wanted to take after school. I thought it through, reflecting on the fact that I like methodical work, I like structure (I liked accounting at school), but that I also have a bit of a practical streak, and I like doing things with my hands. So it occurred to my young brain that perhaps the perfect thing for me would be to work in some sort of production line in a factory. Methodical, practical, structured, sounded like my kind of thing!

I went to my mom and told her that I wanted to be [to quote] "a blue collar worker." Se told me that I didn't know what that meant. I responded that I did, that it meant working in a factory, and that is what I wanted to do.

Of course, in retrospect, I didn't know what it meant. Well, I knew that it possibly meant working in a factory, but I didn't know that it meant working very heard to earn a pittance, probably without benefits, probably without job security, and being the bottom rung in the employment food chain (or near to the bottom rung).

Now that is just something I can't get my head around. There has to be something terribly wrong with a society where people can work hard all day, making or processing things that society needs, and earn barely enough to live on (possibly not even enough to live on). Whereas some guy in an office can come up with "angry birds" and make a gabajillion dollars, and some other guy with a connection in local government can make a gabajillion on a tender for chair covers for official functions, or unnecessary water purifiers for hospitals. That he just buys from a supplier and makes a killing selling at a massive profit.

I would never argue for a society where we all just earn a flat rate of money, there needs to be room for people who work harder to earn more, or people who take up more responsibility to earn more.

But really, someone who works hard for a full day, in an office block or in a production line, should go home with enough to live in a decent place and provide for their families in a decent way.

"Look! The wages you failed to pay the workers who mowed your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty." James 5:4