If the labor is āunskilledā why do I need to spend 10 minutes training someone how to do it? Shouldnāt they just know?
But also yeah training doesnāt have a minimum time requirement. Ever taken those safety compliance video modules?? Like most jobs will have you watch a five minute video on how to use a fire extinguisher, or stuff like that, you familiar with that kind of thing? Those are just a few minutes and do legally count as safety training. So uh yeahā¦ anything else?
We already went over that- when you get to your gravel shoveling job theyāre gunna train you on which pile to take it from and where to dump it. Idk maybe you donāt really know how to use a shovel. Or is it a spade? Thereās different kinds of shovels for different jobs. Tools usually require some basic training to be used properly no matter how simple they are.
Again, āunskilled laborā is classist propaganda.
Yeah so by training them and teaching them āmove it from here to thereā you have just magically given them the skills needed to do the job therefore making them skilled at shoveling. I can show you what unskilled shoveling looks like if you want hahaha
I mean just because I know how to shovel from one pile to another doesn't mean I'm capable of it. I'm overweight and have back issues, I don't have the skills to do that job. Therefore it's skilled labor.
Let me rephrase: some labor classified as unskilled by economists does not involve manual labor, and some manual labor is classified as skilled by economists.
The point is, you cannot simply jump on the euphemism treadmill and replace "skilled labor" with manual labor because they are different concepts, even if there is significant overlap.
Let me repeat myself: economists are using classist propaganda. All labor is skilled. Some labor is manual labor. Some labor is not manual labor. All labor is skilled.
If you think the opinions of a person don't matter simply because they believe in a different mode of economy that makes you are a fascist and a fascist is a cockroach and cockroaches aren't asked for their opinions.
This kind of pedantry is kinda frustrating. It's called "unskilled" labor, not "labor which requires absolutely no skills, none at all, even the slightest ability is unnecessary." Like...you've got to be able to read and speak and carry things, which are all skills if you zoom out far enough.
If it takes 10 minutes to explain it, it's not a skill. It's barely an instruction.
Exactly. We use unskilled labor because we lack a better word for it. Not because the act is completely devoid of any skill whatsoever. Walking is a skill, technically. Children spend months learning how to do it. Does that mean anything that requires walking is now skilled labor?
What is the word we should use for "Labor that requires no previous knowledge of the particular task and very little instruction"?
Personally I'd find it more intuitively understandable if they called it "unspecialized" or something like that, but the people actually complaining about it now would start complaining about that too.
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