> Those jobs never paid anywhere close to $30/hour even in the heyday of unionized American manufacturing.
Auto factory jobs (which were outsourced) certainly paid that much and more in inflation adjusted dollars. From a book studying the auto industry describing average wages in Detroit,
> At $11.62 an hour in 1982 wages, Detroit's autoworkers, according to U.S. car companies, were simply too expensive, particularly with the added cost of pensions, health insurance, and union-negotiated work rules.
This is already over $30/hr in 2022 dollars.
The decline of Detroit UAW auto industry definitely weren't outsourced. It certainly wasn't GM that opened car factories in Japan and Germany. And it certainly wasn't GM shareholders or executives that benefited from the rise of Japanese and German imports.
This isn't outsourcing, this is simply a case of American carmakers being outcompeted by better products from Japanese and European competitors. (A significant fraction of which were actually assembled in US-based plants owned by those overseas competitors.)
This has nothing to do with "mobility of capital", and unless you shut down trade completely, there's nothing in the world that can protect poorly managed American companies from foreign competition. (Nor should you, while one million UAW workers saw their pay decline, 300 million Americans benefited from a vast improvement in car reliability, affordability and safety.)
2. It does have to do with mobility of capital in that many of these "international" competitors are still reliant on American capital and are owned in no small part by American institutional investors.
> This has nothing to do with "mobility of capital", and unless you shut down trade completely, there's nothing in the world that can protect poorly managed American companies from foreign competition. (Nor should you, while one million UAW workers saw their pay decline, 300 million Americans benefited from a vast improvement in car reliability, affordability and safety.)
You are mixing in a moral argument about which is better but it is sort of irrelevant to the veracity of claims like "manufacturing jobs never paid close to $30/hr" and "high-skilled manufacturing was never outsourced."
The Japanese auto industry, like virtually all of postwar Japan, was almost entirely financed by Japan's persistently high domestic savings rate. You don't have to take my word for it, just look at the long and persistently high current account deficit Japan has with the US. Japan is a huge net exporter of capital, not importer, and it has been for 50 years.
1. only low skilled jobs were outsourced
2. low skilled jobs by definition do not pay more than $30/hr.
i am saying at least one of these is wrong, but it really is a question of semantics which one it is.
At that point, the factory owner is going to be focused on automation and robotics, so most of the jobs they offer will be for highly skilled positions (and pay more than welders or machinists make).
Not all warehouse jobs are equally terrible, as evidenced by the people working at warehouses other than Amazon's at lower wages. Amazon pays above the going rate for warehouse workers because of its reputation w.r.t. worker conditions.
I can easily assume that you haven't worked in a warehouse. It's easy for someone working as a developer to maintain that warehouse jobs aren't all "equally terrible." They mostly are terrible. The majority of warehouse workers would rather be working another job, especially Amazon workers. In many of their labor markets, Amazon is chewing through the available labor supply faster than it can be replenished. By the end of this year and especially by the end of 2024 in many markets Amazon will no longer have fresh workers. I wonder where you prime delivery will be then.
Further, Amazon might pay higher than average wages for the industry, but the high turnover creates an oversupply of warehouse skilled labor and actually depresses wages. They offer slight incentives for staying but then overwork their employees to encourage their resignations to hire newer, minimum starting pay employees.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2020-12-17/amazon-am...
I have, on multiple warehouse floors, for around 3 years cumulatively.
Meanwhile, it's obvious you're projecting your own inexperience. Maybe you're the one who should actually set foot in a warehouse before commenting.
> They mostly are terrible.
Then I'm sure you'd consider any job away from an air-conditioned office to be terrible.
Warehouse work is certainly hard work; picking and packing certainly entail being physically active. I won't pretend it's immune to asshole bosses or that injuries never happen; that's the nature of manual labor under capitalism. It's still vastly preferable to outright abusive job sectors like retail or restaurant work or customer service; I'll take walking 5+ miles through a pick path or packing 50+ boxes all day (even with leads and sups breathing down my neck over my numbers) long before I'd consider subjecting myself to snotty asshole customers berating me over their own ineptitude.
Amazon is the exception, not the rule. Warehouse workers outside of Amazon could certainly be paid better - all workers could and should, in many many sectors - but this assertion that a megacorporation with a specific reputation for abuse is somehow representative of an entire job sector is one of those baseless assertions that demonstrates considerable ignorance and inexperience.
> I can easily assume that you haven't worked in a warehouse.
I don't think that I should have said this, and my combative tone wasn't constructive to the discussion. It is my normal, sometimes incorrect operating assumption on this site that while the general user knows about tech that they know jack-all about working in retail etc.
> Then I'm sure you'd consider any job away from an air-conditioned office to be terrible.
Generally speaking, I do consider this to be true, especially in triple digit weather with high humidity which seems to be the norm moving forward. We are all less human and more prone to aggression in this heat. I am grateful that I have the privilege of working in an air conditioned office now.
> Warehouse work is certainly hard work; picking and packing certainly entail being physically active. I won't pretend it's immune to asshole bosses or that injuries never happen; that's the nature of manual labor under capitalism. > I'll take walking 5+ miles through a pick path or packing 50+ boxes all day (even with leads and sups breathing down my neck over my numbers).
Neither of these descriptions provide a positive assertion of warehouse work being not terrible. Warehouse work often takes a physical and mental toll that makes pursuing opportunities to leave it absurdly difficult without social support. I think that your descriptions only further lend credence to my claim that working in a warehouse is generally terrible or at the very least not pleasant.
> It's still vastly preferable to outright abusive job sectors like retail or restaurant work or customer service > long before I'd consider subjecting myself to snotty asshole customers berating me over their own ineptitude.
I recognize this misanthropy. I still have it from my time working in retail and elsewhere. It'll be a cold day in July when I go back of my own volition. I get it. I really do. I'm not going to rehash my experiences here, but it sounds like you've had similar moments, hours, shifts, years.
I see that you've also fallen for that trap of hating one type of low income work more than another. They all have their shitty sides. I think all of our lives would be improved if the general public learned a shred of empathy and respect. I won't hold my breath, but sometimes I have hope.
> this assertion that a megacorporation with a specific reputation for abuse is somehow representative of an entire job sector is one of those baseless assertions that demonstrates considerable ignorance and inexperience.
Amazon typifies and exemplifies this trend of declining working conditions, respect, and exacting work. Also, maybe you should calm down and take a few deep breaths. Try getting more sleep, eating healthy, going for walks where possible, and limiting caffeine intake.
> workers outside of Amazon could certainly be paid better - all workers could and should, in many many sectors
I think we'll both find common ground here. I've often had enough of people expressing disdain for 'undifferentiated' or 'low-skilled' labor' being undeserving of income necessary to afford living. I think we could both find common sense and common views, but we have different outlooks on society. Given the quality of our discussion here I sincerely hope we don't have the displeasure of meeting. Vaya con dios.
And you have every right to that opinion, but that wasn't quite the topic of the discussion; rather, the topic was whether all warehouse working conditions are equally terrible, and my experience (as well as the experiences of my coworkers during that time, some of whom came from Amazon) strongly suggests otherwise.
> I see that you've also fallen for that trap of hating one type of low income work more than another.
That's hardly a "trap"; that's a basic preference for doing hard work v. doing hard work while also being endlessly emotionally abused as part of the job description - and even ignoring Amazon, the former tends to pay at least marginally better.
> Also, maybe you should calm down and take a few deep breaths. Try getting more sleep, eating healthy, going for walks where possible, and limiting caffeine intake.
Maybe you should follow your own advice instead of yet again projecting onto me.
> I've often had enough of people expressing disdain for 'undifferentiated' or 'low-skilled' labor' being undeserving of income necessary to afford living.
And hopefully you realize that I already do agree with that disdain (as is obvious from the other comments of mine on this site over the last 10 years).
> Given the quality of our discussion here I sincerely hope we don't have the displeasure of meeting. Vaya con dios.
If we do, then hopefully it'll be under better circumstances, without the initial hostility.
What? You think overseas manufacturers are paying $30 an hour?
It wasn't high-skilled manufacturing that was outsourced. Welders and machinists still have near zero unemployment and make about as much as a software engineer. It was low skilled manufacturing jobs that were outsourced to China. Those jobs never paid anywhere close to $30/hour even in the heyday of unionized American manufacturing.