Right. It’s rather like Patton’s remark about you don’t win wars by dying for your country, you win them by making the other guy die for his. You don’t get rich in the trades busting your hump for others, you get rich by making some other guys bust their hump for you.
So…Tom Sawyer (the book character)?
Seems an older idea than Patton’s. Getting people to do it is the trick.
The term “Rosie the Riveter” originated in a 1942 song of the same name. The “We Can Do It” poster was from February 1943, and the Norman Rockwell painting was May 1943. Although the woman in the “We Can Do It” poster wasn’t explicitly named, I think it’s fair to call it an image of “Rosie the Riveter”, and one that predated Rockwell’s.
One thing that I often see missing from the discussion is that the trades require aptitudes that some people simply don’t have. I could never have been a carpenter, mechanic, or plumber. My sense of spatial relations and lack of mechanical reasoning are such that these jobs were not an option for me. It’s not that I never tried to learn; I grew up on a farm, and my dad and older brother spent plenty of time trying to help me learn to work on my car. It simply didn’t take. I can change oil, but that’s about it. I parlayed the aptitude I do have into a successful library career. I’m not sure what else I could have done; probably anything involving strong verbal and research skills. Without college I would have been limited to “strong back, weak mind” type of jobs. At the time I finished high school I would have been fine with that, but during the Reagan recession there weren’t too many of those jobs to be had.
I think that is not a good description.
It may well be that in pure numbers “most” women were in clerical work of some sort.
But it remains that women also populated factories in a big way. Enough that it arguably led to the women’s rights movement some years later. A debate for another thread but it remains that women in factories was no small thing even if a “smaller” workforce than more typical work women tended to do at that time.
And, more broadly for purposes of this thread, women can clearly do those jobs as well as men. Is it men somehow keeping women out or is it women just don’t want to do it for some reason? (societal…upbringing…something else)?
As the German system has been mentioned I’d like to give a very simplified overview of it, for comparison
- After finishing full time schooling, depending on school after 10th, 12th or 13th grade (in the latter two options you could opt to go to college), you can apply for an apprenticeship position with an employer.
- The employer (Ausbildungsbetrieb) must be approved by the Handwerkskammer (chamber of guilds, a public law institution representing crafts masters) for apprenticeships; main requirement: at least one employee with the certificate for training employees. With small employers it’s the master and owner.
- Apprenticeship is ~60-70 % with the employer (practical training), ~30-40 % at trade school (Berufsschule), run by the state with a syllabus codetermined between state and guild. For some rare trades e.g. cooper, thatcher, or organ builder trade schools are residential, with each year’s school in one or a few blocks, but for most trades trade school is in commuting distance at 1-2 days per working week, with some blocks.
- Berufsschule also covers general education, and for minors it discharges their legal requirement to attend school.
- Apprenticeships mostly are 3 years, with pay rising from 1st to 3rd year, and pay reflecting that the apprentice does not work full time at the employer and that they cannot work unsupervised yet.
- At the end of the apprenticeship you do your journeyman piece, pass your exam and then you are a journeyman - a certificate portable between employers.
- After typically some time as a journeyman, you can do master schooling which mostly covers management skills for a small craft business (full time: up to one year; part time: up to three years), do your master piece, pass your exam and then you are a master and entitled to open your own craft business or lead a craft business you inherited or bought.
- There are paths to higher education open to those who started with vocational education: after three years as a journeyman you can pass an exam then start at university; craft masters can start at university without a further exam.
The social stratification problem with German vocational education is not one for the people in vocational education but for those who cannot enter and complete vocational education:
- People whose intelligence or motivation is not enough for the classroom part
- People who cannot delay gratification, and prefer an unskilled work wage to the temporarily lower wage of a 1st year apprentice
- People whose executive faculties are not up to sticking through a 3 year full time personal project
For these reason, I’d consider someone’s journeymen certificate (Gesellenbrief) not just as a certificate of skills, but more importantly a certificate of nonflakyness.
There are some professions that are not crafts but where training is structured as an apprenticeship. For example for police officers there is a lower stream where training is structured on the model of a 2.5 year apprenticeship, and an upper stream where training is structured like a 3-year bachelor’s course at police college with practical elements.
Some trade jobs are better than others. Just as some degrees are better than others. Aptitude and work ethic are also factors.
If you can get into a trade with no or significantly lower debt than college that alone has advantages.
Entry level does have crap wages, but the idea is that is where you start and you work your way upward via hard work, learning on the job, and making connections. Also by being reliable and hard working so people are willing to hire you.
The retail employer I work for actually has an upward path that even a shelf-stocker can take advantage of… but they have to be 100% reliable, a hard worker, and willing to go back to school in that there are classes to take and higher up certifications. Also, must be willing to travel to other locations.
The “show up on time”, “actually work” and “be willing to learn and adapt” seems to be the biggest obstacles for people these days. Without those three, though, you’re not really going anywhere no matter what you do. With them, even a high school drop out can (eventually) get somewhere.
I worked in construction for awhile where I was always the only woman on the crew. If I worked hard the guys accepted me being there because I was pulling my weight and not asking anyone else to do my job. Really, most of the crap I got was from the customers, some whom did not seem comfortable with a woman doing such work, and one lady who just freaked out over a woman doing such work. On the other hand, we did get some jobs because there was a woman on the crew. I get why a frail, 80+ old woman that needs a walker to get around might be nervous or even fearful of a bunch of brawny, sweaty guys clumping around her residence but somehow seeing a woman on a paint or drywall or flooring crew made it OK. It wasn’t just men clumping around and if a woman was working with them they weren’t that bad and maybe trustworthy.
Being a woman in a male-dominated profession can go either way - rejection or acceptance, but these days mostly seems under “acceptance.” You’ll occasionally get outdated notions or bigotry, but it’s like minorities having to suffer the occasional racial slur. It happens. You have to find a way to deal with it and move on.
There are also people who assume that a woman mechanic is better because in order to succeed in that profession a woman has to really want to do a non-traditional job and probably had to be better than her male counterparts to get the same respect/job/whatever. Sort of how some people view men who are nurses.
I have no idea how true that meme actually is in the real world, but it does exist.
Prior to WWII “secretary” was NOT a traditionally female job. Prior to WWI most secretaries were men. For example, when Isaac Pitman (the man who invented Pitman shorthand) opened a school for secretaries in 1870 it was strictly men only.
It was the world wars that changed that job from a male dominated profession to a female on, first in WWI and much more accelerated from WWII onward, to the point that by the 1950’s it was “pink collar” but at the time of WWII it was not yet to that level pigeon-holing.
That’s actually true of any profession. Which is why a one-size-fits-all solution doesn’t work. You shouldn’t tell all kids to go to college, and you shouldn’t tell all kids to go to trade school. In construction and a few other endeavors I’ve done I’ve met people who would be a disaster in a “desk job” but were fantastic at what they were doing. On the other hand, from my time in corporate America I met a lot of desk jockeys, some of them with multiple doctorate level degrees, who would have been hopeless in a trade. Apparently I’m the weird one, having had some success at both modes of working.
I suspect it’s multi factorial. Some of it is society, upbringing, and gender role expectations. However, many trades require a certain level of physical strength and stamina that are less common in women. A motivated woman might be able to work up to the necessary level, but there are likely some that simply can’t. Also, a lot of trades aren’t very compatible with either pregnancy or raising children. Nor is the latter a problem for just the women - one of the guys I used to work alongside during my construction years wound up a single father. He lost jobs because he had to care for a sick kid or otherwise take time off to be a responsible parent. Which gets back to social expectations, gender roles, and to some extent biological realities.
On the other hand, speaking from experience, being on the small side for an adult human being can make it easier to work in tight spaces, which is an advantage many women would have over men for some jobs.
Apprentices don’t make a lot of money - ours even get discounts at the company canteen. It is expected that an apprentice is still living with their parents. This means that the company is getting cheap labor in return for teaching.
Switzerland has a strong apprentice program, which is how students get experience. For the first year or two, the student only works 2 days a week, as they are in school the other 3 days. In their last year they work 4 days a week and only go to school one day a week.
Programs vary, but basically the apprentices start as helpers. An apprentice painter won’t be painting the first day. They will be fetching tools and doing other tasks to helping the person they are apprenticed to. Some of the work is grunt work, but the apprentice gets to learn. As the apprentice is promoted through the program, they will get more responsibility, and by the time they graduate from the program, and school, they will have the skills to get a fulltime job, with a matching salary.
Very few apprentices get jobs with the company they apprentice with. It used to be different - I have coworkers who started working at our employer when they were 16, and they stayed until retirement.
This entire thread is an argument for investing in education at lower levels, making all types of post-secondary education more affordable and accessible, investing in social structures that allow people to actually make a living wage right out of the gate, supporting maternity leave, childcare systems…
This is true. To a large degree, our educational system tries to determine which students are suited for college, and which aren’t, and then tries to steer those who aren’t suited for college towards the trades. But there’s a difference between “not suited for college” and “suited for the trades”. And it’s not clear what to do with a student who isn’t suited for anything that would pay a living wage.
Well…I am not sure there is a good solution to this beyond making a variety of options accessible to anyone who want to go that route.
Certainly some people have more aptitude than others for a given job. Intelligence, what they find interesting, work ethic and so on.
That will differ for everyone. We usually drift to our strengths and likes but not everyone gets the job they want. I would venture that MOST jobs are not jobs someone really wants (perhaps I should say career they want…no one starts as the head of JP Morgan). We hear about those lucky (relative) few who do what they love for a job…usually artists who have managed to make a go of it. Someone still has to pickup the garbage.
And, of course, there are some who just want nothing to do with work…for whatever reason. There will be all types in any society. We hope we can get each into what suits them best which, we assume, maximizes productivity and happiness.
My kids are dealing with the job market now. Daughter has a Bachelor’s and has decided, after a couple of years subbing, that she feels called to teach. She has the aptitude and temperament, so she has a good chance of being successful. Our son has given his notice on his technical writing job because the owner of the company has been working the writers like crazy (he’s worked until 9 with no OT pay several times). Not sure what his prospects will be; fortunately he’s saved a lot of money and is willing to work service jobs until something else comes up. I’m thinking this is a good time to be retired. I’ll substitute teach a few times a week; my daughter put in a good word for me before she left for Chicago.
FWIW…OT is only paid on hourly wages. If he is salaried there is no OT. If he is paid hourly than OT is, I believe, mandated by law. It’s not the employer’s choice. They have to pay OT.
Also, whether an employee is hourly or salaried is NOT up to the employer. Legally most jobs are one or the other. Your employer just cannot say you are hourly if you are doing salaried work.
It is worth noting that one is not necessarily better than the other. Each has some advantages over the other. From my experience salaried is better but, if they work you till 9p every day maybe not. Not surprisingly…it depends.
Bottom line: This is determined by law. It is not up to the employer. I’d say go to HR but I once worked for HR and as much as they say they are there to help employees they are really there to protect the company and you lose. (They will help for minor things like explaining your health benefits but I would never trust them with anything that might threaten the company…my advice would be consult with a lawyer which can be cheap or even free for the first meeting to see if there is a case there.)
IANAL
ETA: Suing the company comes with its own problems…big ones. Just figure what you should be owed and if that is different from what the company is legally obliged to pay. Go from there.
He is salaried, so not really overtime. The employees (there aren’t many; it’s a small company) are questioning the owner’s judgement; he seems oblivious to the day to day issues the employees face and is not interested in finding out.
What is the actual goal?
A high-paying job?
A high-paying job that you can stand to do until retirement without completely wrecking your body?
An education?
A secure job with a clear career path?
A university education isn’t supposed to be job training. It builds a set of skills that are essential for all kinds of professional work, but that’s not really what education is for. That said, how do people get jobs these days? Universities are networking machines, full of people who are themselves already well-connected. Worth something, if you can learn (or teach yourself) about networking and job-hunting.
So many possible complexities that I will not begin to guess anymore.
Encourage him to quietly (as in, tell NO one, not even friends) search for a new job. See what’s out there. See what he can get. No harm or wrong in looking.
Options are a good thing.
He’s already given his notice; he’s leaving in early August.
It will be different for everyone but I think we can guess at a minimum enough income to buy a modest but nice home (as in clean, no bugs/vermin and reasonably safe area) and raise a family (say three kids or less). Health benefits for you and the family too.
I’m just guessing but I think a lot of people would be happy with that. If you want a mansion and yacht then go for it.
This is true. My older brother was one of these people. He was useless at anything requiring tools
I believe women are certainly capable (intellectually speaking) of being mechanics, plumbers, electricians, etc. But I think your latter comment is true… for whatever reason, many women simply don’t want to those jobs.