The Myth of Unskilled Labor
It’s past time to retire the phrase ‘unskilled labor.’ There really isn’t any such thing - its an offensive myth. The phrase should go the way of other antiquated discriminatory slang.
The term ‘unskilled labor’ almost always describes a workforce that the economy would in fact, collapse without. How convenient. They are also jobs that require advanced skills that are extraordinarily valuable to society, even if they do not earn a high salary. In fact - it is precisely the value of these jobs to society that often dictate that they will not be highly paid. This observation is one that David Graeber describes at great lengths in Bullshit Jobs - that one’s income is inversely proportionate to its value the job contributes to society. To explain, he gives several examples - to take one: if we woke up tomorrow and all lawyers were gone, overall, we would get on okay. Whereas if we woke up and all say, garbage collectors or janitors were gone, it would be a different story. Society would come to a screeching hault within about 5 minutes. To add my own gloss, in the lawyers’ case, the worst distruption would be the absence of public defenders and family immigration - the people that work with the most marginalized in our society to try to protect them from the most egregious outcomes. Without fail, public defenders and family immigration attorneys are among the most underpaid lawyers in the entire legal field.
I don’t think that anyone can watch garbage collectors come to their home on a shift and truly think the job requires no skill. There is the operation of large and heavy machinery in residential areas that can be narrow and full of pedestrians, fast maneuvering of heavy equipment, I could go on. So, why does the media continue to use this zombie phrase?
In his important book Work Without the Worker, Phil Jones shows that in fact, work that is typically described as ‘unskilled’ is actually the precise kind that is the hardest - if not impossible - to replace with machines or AI. It’s not that hard to see why - the care and service industries require specific types of skills that are not replicable by machines, cleaning everything from high rises, offices, hospitals and homes, involves attention to small and overlooked areas. Making coffee, finding items in a store’s huge inventory, answering customers questions and providing attentive service - these are all jobs that anyone who has ever gotten on automated customer service line knows cannot be entrusted to machines and expect the same result. Meanwhile, many who work in the care or service industries support an employer with record profits and power, and more than enough resources to provide for all of their workers. Instead they degrade them and justify it on the basis of their labor being “unskilled” when that couldn’t be further from the truth.
Unskilled labor is a myth that divides the working class.
The sentiment that professionals deserve more than those who work at Target because they have a degree is problematic. Setting aside the fact that many people who work in the service sector frequently have advanced degrees - and not by accident since a degree is a shorthand sorting mechanism used against workers by employers - every worker deserves a living wage and supportive working conditions regardless of whether or not they obtained a formal degree or not.
Obtaining a degree is expensive, and for that reason it is a useful sorting mechanism for employers. The people who have degrees are also the types of employees who are likely to have access to other resources - transportation, housing, heat and water, internet and a phone, medical care - the things that we all need to show up to a job and do it well that our employers have absolutely no interest in providing.
The division caused by this false category - the ‘unskilled’ laborer is pervasive. For example, in a recent study released by the Howard Schultz foundation - that found Starbucks is an employer that does not invest in its employees - the researchers made decisions, weighing data about working conditions based on the opportunities afforded to “low” and “middle a good place to work.
Our society tells us to go to school, and millennials are right to feel let down at how few opportunities for meaningful work there are once that process is over, that will allow you to support yourself and pay back your loans. But using that disappointment as a reason to demand higher salaries just seems weak. No one really learned in school that hard work is rewarded - just as often we learned that the kids who had the money for better resources (tutors, SAT prep) were rewarded even more handsomely. Moreover, the jobs that pay the most are the ones that provide the least to society (lawyers versus janitors). The answer isn’t to reward the lawyers because they have expensive degrees, the answer is to unite and demand we take care of all of our people.
The working class - ie, anyone who does not make their income from rents - is entitled to more. We are all skilled and undervalued, and deserve the ability to live a fruitful life. Except for people like Neal Katyal. It’s time to put the myth of unskilled labor to bed.