It's interesting that our solution to "nobody wants to do physical labor" is to outsource it to other countries and our solution to "nobody wants to do professional knowledge work . . . for cheap" is to outsource it to other countries and supplement with H1Bs as much as possible. What I find odd is the difference in response to each.
If you're a professional that works with knowledge, you're told "hey, that's the world market, baby -- if you can't compete on a fifth of your salary, then to hell with you".
If you're a professional that works in labor/manual work, we involve unions and national programs to re-invigorate interest in the field of welding or laying pipes or wiring homes and treat it like news that the national flag has just been replaced.
I find both a concern, yet am bothered by the seeming double-standard.
As a personal anecdote: My grandfather was a pacifist who none-the-less served his country when called during WWII. He was an engineer who was responsible for a lot of stuff in Anchorage during the time. (He had an amazing panoramic photo set he took of Valdeze back when it was whole). He was a pianist. He was a chemist. He touch mathematics in college. He threw discus in college track and field. His home was filled with books on chemistry, math, history, physics, geography. I grew up surrounded by stacks of OMNI, National Geographic, Discovery, Popular Science, Popular Mechanics and plenty of other great reads. And for a living, he chose to build houses. He became a general contractor who didn't really contract out that much work. He did almost everything himself, except pour foundations and wire the homes. He built beautiful homes that often took two to four years and cost a few million dollars (and some people hired him more than once to build their homes over the decades as their tastes evolved). He just loved building stuff and working outside and he did it his entire life. I was also fortunate to spend many years of my childhood going onto his job-site with him day after day and goofing around, helping, watching. There's a lot to be said for loving your job and doing it excellently.
Actually skilled blue collar type workers make a lot of money. If they also have business/management skills they can make tons of money. I have a friend who was in CS in undergrad until he realized that he can't sit inside all day. So, he dropped out of college and learned concrete (did go back and get a civil engineering degree). He's now next in line to own the concrete business he's a part of when the current own retires. Sometimes he works 12 hour days and he usually comes home dirty, but he and his family also have more money than they know what to do with.
BTW, he's also that kind of person who can fix/build anything as mentioned in the original article.
Similarly, my father was a fix-anything type, but also knew how to manage and do public relations. He got much more money than my mother, with masters in education and psychology.
We had a plumber come out to the house for a repair - it was $170 callout, and $15 for a part. He was here about 20 minutes (yes, there was drive time too, but they drive to multiple places). I wouldn't exactly call that 'peanuts'.
I know (at least I think) you weren't trying to say it wasn't worth it but I think it bears pointing out that you are paying for his experience, not the 20 minute fix. It's akin to paying a hair stylist not for what they cut off but for what they leave on.
I wasn't quite saying that, but this notion of "skilled trades are working for peanuts" isn't 100% true. Granted, if that guy only has 2 callouts per week, he's in trouble, but I suspect he had a few more than that.
Yes, I'm paying for his experience, etc. I know that. What's also a little odd to me is that this doesn't work for developers as well, but I think it's mostly because you typically call out a developer for development - before there's an emergency of some sort (broken toilet, in my case). People often want to haggle with me on my pricing but they wouldn't dream of trying to get the plumber to work at half-rate.
That said, I needed a root canal recently. First place I went to (after my tooth cracked) quoted $2200. I went someplace else who did it for $1400. So, even amongst skilled professionals, there's variance.
Experience and availability. You wouldn't be paying $170 for 20 minutes of their time (closer to an hour or more, really, given driving & whatnot) if you had to wait a month for them to fit you into their schedule, because they'd be outrageously rich if they were that busy. The prices go up because they need to eat during slow periods.
"If you're a professional that works in labor/manual work, we involve unions..."
We involve unions? Unions were formed by the workers in various professions. 'We' didn't do that - people in those professions did. If there aren't unions in knowledge worker fields it's because knowledge workers aren't forming unions. Unions to my knowledge don't wait for some outside authority to allow them to exist - if they had done that they'd have never formed.
So to the extent we have a double standard because some professions have unions that'll fight for them and some don't, that's on the people in those left-out professions to do something.
If you're a professional that works with knowledge, you're told "hey, that's the world market, baby -- if you can't compete on a fifth of your salary, then to hell with you".
If you're a professional that works in labor/manual work, we involve unions and national programs to re-invigorate interest in the field of welding or laying pipes or wiring homes and treat it like news that the national flag has just been replaced.
I find both a concern, yet am bothered by the seeming double-standard.
As a personal anecdote: My grandfather was a pacifist who none-the-less served his country when called during WWII. He was an engineer who was responsible for a lot of stuff in Anchorage during the time. (He had an amazing panoramic photo set he took of Valdeze back when it was whole). He was a pianist. He was a chemist. He touch mathematics in college. He threw discus in college track and field. His home was filled with books on chemistry, math, history, physics, geography. I grew up surrounded by stacks of OMNI, National Geographic, Discovery, Popular Science, Popular Mechanics and plenty of other great reads. And for a living, he chose to build houses. He became a general contractor who didn't really contract out that much work. He did almost everything himself, except pour foundations and wire the homes. He built beautiful homes that often took two to four years and cost a few million dollars (and some people hired him more than once to build their homes over the decades as their tastes evolved). He just loved building stuff and working outside and he did it his entire life. I was also fortunate to spend many years of my childhood going onto his job-site with him day after day and goofing around, helping, watching. There's a lot to be said for loving your job and doing it excellently.