So after 8 decades of psychological warfare to get manufacturing and fabrication moved to nations that used to have lucrative slavery, we’ve decided (because of a dry, boring “national security” issue) to bring back these factories…
so… $2 an hour? Honestly, we’d rather make it $2 a day, but… yeah… maybe we can make it $2 a day, if payment of rent is included into the salery? We can’t trust China, but we sort of want to recreate the conditions.
There’s definitely work to be done so that production of goods becomes once again an esteemed endeavour. It’s problematic that factory work is as undesirable as locally made things are desirable. It’s a cultural thing now and it’s silly.
It’s not inherently undesirable, but often enough extremely unattractive.
Low pay, bad working condition, no sense of accomplishment, hardly any upwards mobility. Why would I do that, if I have better options?
Here in Germany, people used to take pride (and sometimes still do) in working for VW or Daimler, they had a sense of belonging, pay was good and there was at least a feeling that your company took care of you. That is pretty much gone.
I know a lot of people that work in union manufacturing jobs that have a real sense of pride and feeling of accomplishment about it. Gotta say, having time off, extra money, and voice in how the company treats you probably goes a long way, because some of those same people hated their non-unions jobs before.
Absolutely. But for some reason, capitalism hates if workers are happy, so you have to press them harder and harder.
These jobs you’re describing are becoming rarer, and not only in manufacturing. I’m a software developer office drone and I’m financially very well off and have pretty good working conditions, but my work is mostly meaningless, if I’m honest. Not that the product I’m building is useless, far from it, but there’s so much that removes me from actually feeling valuable, that I might as well just dig a hole and fill it up again.
We need to put more effort on automating factory jobs, but having them be supervised by techs 24 hours. It makes for nice monitoring and maintenance jobs, as long as they are paid according to the value their machine brings.
Interesting relevant factoid.
I am a truck driver. I make $75,000 per year. Required a license that cost me 2 years of my life or $10,000 (my choice) for school (12 weeks) and roughly $1000 in admin fees to my State to aquire.
My wife is a mental health therapist. She makes roughly $55,000. To do her current job required a Master’s degree($80,000 +6 years), and 2 separate licenses with an unknown (to me) cost but required a total of 5 years on the job to acquire. Before she got that second license, she made more money working at McDonalds. And she still has continued education requirements costing upwards of $800 per course.
She loves her job (usually) and I love that she loves it, but if you’re looking for money, THE TRADES PAY! And usually a heck of a lot earlier and better than jobs that require a college degree.
Edit: Spolling is hard!
brings jobs back to America
NOOO not THOSE jobs
How about no and instead we focus on automation?
Last year I quit cooking after nearly 15 years and got a job at a semiconductor factory. I was making more money on day one and the work is soooo much better. Went from having no breaks to 1.8 hours of break time. No vacation to 5 weeks PTO. I never have to stay past my scheduled time out.
I’ll never go back.
I make decent money working freelance from home.
I might consider working in a factory if they payed me like 150,000 a year and offered on the job training and promotions and pay raises yearly that beat inflation.
I don’t make anywhere close to 150,000, but I’m not willing to drive to a factory, work in a place that may be bad for my health, and give up the experience I’m gaining each day in my current field of work.
Honestly, the jobs would probably fill at 75-100k/y
Not worth it, it’s more than I’m earning now, but then you have to figure in the commute and the hour lunch break that I have to be there for but not get paid for.
It’s a tough sell.
Then I guess corporations will just have to start paying Americans living wages, huh?
Factory jobs do pay living wages. I worked at a Fortune 500 factory in rural AL and the entry level jobs (running the street sweeper inside the factory) started at $28/hr. Operators that took OT would make over $100k/yr. The operators that worked there 20+ years made more money than I did as an engineer.
I’ve worked in factories in California, Ohio, Alabama, and my peers have worked all over (different companies). Factory jobs pay very decent and often have a hard time finding employees.
Thanks for the injection of reason. I work as an engineer in a manufacturing plant. We’re short-staffed with a high turnover. However that’s because of the hours, not the pay. This thread is filled with people who think factory workers are manual-labor oppressed people with no upward mobility. It’s borderline classist. Factory jobs aren’t inherently bad or unhealthy.
I think most people still visualize these roles as we see them on TV where its a person in all white scrubs screwing in 4 things before passing it down the line for 12 hours per day.
The factories that can actually be profitable in North America need massive automation in order to function and most of the jobs are far more complex than we think. CNC operators, forklift operators, etc.
Exactly. It’s the hours that suck, depending on shift. Do you forever want to live life in 3rd shift? If you have kids, you’ll rarely see them… You’ll be asleep when they’re awake and at work when they are.
It’s just not ideal for most people.
