Why do we simultaneously demand and degrade essential workers?
Why do we simultaneously demand and degrade essential workers?
The rebrand from blue collar to unskilled to 'essential' is simply for show.
Y’all remember Covid? Most countries don’t seem to, but maybe you remember what it was like to be indoors for a few months — when all social obligations and work suddenly went remote.
In my country (and others’), we clapped and banged pots and pans for our healthcare workers. Our essential workers, as global media dubbed them. Not just healthcare, the only reason society continued to function was because of the folks who worked in-person jobs, risking their health, their lives, and also those of their loved ones.
I’m talking about folks who worked in food service, those who delivered things across the country and then to our homes/grocery stores, people whose labour allowed us to continue existing safely inside our homes.
Ironically, after a few weeks of the “new normal, “we were back to treating all our ‘essential’ workers with disrespect and apathy — not to mention the criminally unlivable low wages (a common thing almost everywhere in the world).
What’s the colour of your collar?
All my life, I’ve seen people talk about how it’s important to find a good, well-paying job in a company. Or else, you might be stuck serving people in a restaurant or flipping burgers or something else — all these ‘scary’ options are presented in the most derogatory tone possible.
As a child, you simply imbibe what the adults around you say. After all, how are you supposed to know just how disrespectful and awful they’re being by pointing to someone working in a supermarket as your shitty future if you don’t do well?
‘Blue’ collar jobs have long since carried a stigma. You’re not smart enough, didn’t study the right thing, or you’re poor, (and destined to remain poor) if you’re working one of these blue collar jobs.
Of course, like many things, we’ve rebranded blue collar to ‘essential’ workers during the pandemic — solely for the optics. I don’t know if many countries did anything beyond banging pots and pans for their healthcare workers or their delivery drivers — like give them a raise, split record-breaking profits, or (the bare minimum) give them some respect.
“...frontline Walmart associates earning starting wages and working 40 hours per week will earn the equivalent of an extra $0.71 (pre-tax) for every hour they worked since the start of the pandemic. In comparison, the wealth of the three Walton siblings has risen $6.2 million per hour, even while they sleep. Frontline Amazon workers will earn the equivalent of an extra $0.99 per hour (pre-tax) for each hour worked over the pandemic. Meanwhile Jeff Bezos’ wealth has risen $11.5 million an hour.”
Forget putting your money where your mouth is, our mouths need a proper cleansing every time we talk about essential workers.
There are a lot of things wrong with our society but calling the people who make and serve you your food, those who navigate tricky ways to deliver your order to you within a day, or those who collect produce that literally makes your meal, unskilled?
Ask me to serve a whole table’s meals without spilling a drink or dropping a plate. I can’t do it.
Ask someone who’s not a writer to write? They won’t be able to do it.
Yet knowing one of these things is a 'skill’.
How the fuck did we come to this because all of these things take skills — ergo, they are not unskilled.
“Despite the complexity of the work, these jobs are deemed “unskilled” or “low-skill” because they demand repetition of menial work — critically important stuff like making sandwiches and pouring coffee.”
Listen, if any of you have ever written something or used Excel, you’ll know exactly how repetitive it can be. So what’s the deal here?
How can we need ‘unskilled’ workers — or risk a collapsing economy, yet degrade them and their work?
You can’t demand a service and then disrespect the provider
It’s easy to understand why we degrade essential workers and call them unskilled. It’s because humanity as a whole needs to feel superior. We do it with animals thinking we have the highest and the best kind of intelligence. We do it between races of our own species. So, of course, we’re also gonna do it on a more granular level.
“Service jobs [...] often have erratic schedules, with work that demands physical labor, and with little or no benefits. Those jobs were made more difficult during the first year of the pandemic when many service workers were asked to continue working through wave after wave of surging COVID cases while dealing with increasingly hostile customers.”
If we paid essential workers their worth, we’d never be able to sell the story that it’s a shit future to end up as a ‘blue’ collar or ‘unskilled’ worker. Money is power, and that power is what people wield over others. When you don’t pay essential workers a living wage and continue to demand the same level of service, unchanged, then you’re gonna have what’s going on right now: a labour shortage.
How is anyone supposed to pay rent, buy groceries (forget any fun stuff for a moment), and exist with minimum wages that can’t even help people break even?
This is a systemic problem, so I don’t expect that one issue of Not Controversial will cause worldwide change. But I do think it’s crucial that we all recognize the language we use and the connotations behind it.
Calling someone ‘unskilled’ or degrading their profession shuts us off from the fact that they are also people. Their skills shouldn’t be questioned, but if they were, they do have skills — just because they don’t sit in an office doesn’t mean they don’t use their brains or intellect.
And you know what, maybe some of these jobs don’t require as much thinking. That doesn’t mean they deserve disrespect, either.
Essential workers keep our society functioning. If you’re pissed about their strikes or protests, try to look beyond the narrative one side of media feeds you — why are they striking and risking their jobs? Even as they strike or make their demands for better pay, less punishing schedules, or unions, they continue to serve our society and contribute to it in their way.
We’d be better off respecting them and paying them their worth — because, without them, society would crumble.
Tl;dr: respect your essential workers, and if you’re able to, please pay them fairly (salaries, tips, etc.).
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Some things to chew on this week 💌
Taxes are a sore spot for many. This essay (h/t Dense Discovery) explores how they're essentially a means to pay for the civilization we live in. I like it, and I think I'd be happier (or less salty) about paying taxes if my country told me where my contributions are going.
Have you ever known a relaxed woman? Not me.
100 ways to slightly improve your life without really trying. (I can't eat butter since I'm allergic to dairy — not lactose intolerant, straight up allergic — but you probably can, so look at #35. Also, I'm off to do #86.)
Spent like 20 minutes making up new emojis in this emoji kitchen — it's your turn now.
Old but gold — playlists to help you make the perfect pasta.
Can't believe we've come to this, but I had to ask a company that offered remote work options if they "tracked" work in any way. Actually, I can totally believe it because that's exactly our dystopian reality that now monitors "active" time under the guise of efficiency and (toxic) productivity.
Something to end your night with:
Thanks for reading! Don’t forget to hit like and share this issue if you enjoyed it. 🖤
I’ll see you next week — maybe not at the same time, but definitely the same place.
I grew up in a blue collar family - no shame! :) My Mom sewed T-shirts in a factory and my Dad was a lineman. For most of my teenage years, I did farm work, picking veggies & fruit and planting ornamental baskets of flowers for a local farmer. The complainers should try living without clothes or electricity or food; or maybe break out a sewing machine to make their own clothes or try climbing a telephone pole to fix a broken wire (they didn't use the bucket-trucks back when my Dad was on the job, they used spikes to climb the poles!) or try to grow their own vegetables, and they might soon change their tune.
I tried waitressing once (before I got smart and went with one of the things I was good at, farm work). I was (and still am) clumsy and I have a horrible memory, so you can probably see where this is going. I lasted one night, and not even the entire shift. I kept mixing up orders and dropping things. The pinnacle of my ineptitude was when I accidentally dropped a bowl of pureed butternut squash all over somebody's three piece suit... it was like a nightmare - it's amazing how far a small bowl of squash can spread itself out all over an expensive piece of clothing! At that point, the manager (who happened to be friends with my Dad, which is why he agreed to let me try the job) called me over and politely but firmly told me that he didn't think I was cut out for the work, and sent me home. The owner of the suit was very gracious (thank goodness, since I would not have been able to afford to pay for the dry cleaning!). Serving food is an important job and sure as heck isn't easy!
Something I was good at was being a nursing aide - back when I was on the job, most of the residents were thrilled when I walked into their room to help them dress every morning, because they knew that I would let them go at their own pace and not rush them. I didn't have much time to socialize with my co-workers, but I got everything done, and I left happy, relaxed residents in my wake. Back in the early 2000's, a nursing aide was paid $10 to $15 per hour for backbreaking, sometimes heart breaking, work, but I loved it. Now I work full time taking care of my father-in-law at home, and I love that even more.
Most of the people who lived in the nursing home appreciated being cared for by someone who really wanted to make sure they were comfortable and happy, and they respected how much work it took to care for them. Their relatives, often not so much - they would sometimes treat me like a nonentity or a servant - I would have to remind them that I was there to help their Grandma or Grandpa, and that visitors were responsible for fetching their own snacks or drinks (though if Grandma or Grandpa asked me to fetch refreshments so they could entertain their family members properly, that was a different story, of course). The opinions of the family members didn't matter to me, the residents were the only ones who mattered - I always told them that they were the boss. :) I loved that job, despite the heavy physical work load, the occasional frustration and messes, the sorrow at the death or suffering of one of "my" residents, and the low pay, because I knew that my work made it possible for my elderly charges to live a better life... and I knew I was good at it, too. There aren't many people who are capable of patiently and cheerfully answering the same question every five to ten minutes (it happens), and talking to people or pets (with a straight face) that only the resident can see - I am proud of posessing this ability. :)
I'm a pretty mousy person, but when I see someone being a jerk to a cashier or waitress, I speak up - there is absolutely no excuse for rude behavior towards someone who is only trying to help. Everyone should respect the people who work in the service industries - because of these folks, we can walk on clean streets,take an occasional break from cooking by going out to eat a nice meal, know that someone will take care of us if we are ever incapable of doing so ourselves, have electricity running in our houses, have functional septic systems (you don't think that's important? You should smell how awful it is when it backs up!), and many more things... it's a pretty awesome gift!
BTW, I love the post you reposted: "If you use someone's job as an example of failure, you're not freaking allowed to benefit from their work." Perfect. Thank you!