It’s also a job as you allude to where early retirement needs to be part of the plan. It’s a good job but hard on the body and it’s hard to create an efficient way to reduce the amount of weight that they need to lift in a day.
I know a few who were union and pensioned off, retired in their 50s but that doesn’t change the way their joints feel.
Not sure if it’s better or worse than turd herding.
resipsaloquitur@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Maybe he should pay more?
spankmonkey@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Can he afford to?
Current trades are underpaid for what is expected from them.
teft@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Then he needs to charge more if he can’t afford to pay his employees more.
Tinidril@midwest.social 2 days ago
Exactly. There is no such thing as a labor shortage, only activities that people don’t think are worth the cost.
spankmonkey@lemmy.world 1 day ago
If people are willing to pay, sure. But you can pay as much as you want but people won’t necessarily be interested in a skilled trade if the pay in general is low. That is a long term commitment and not solved by a single employer.
resipsaloquitur@lemmy.world 2 days ago
It’s a labor market. Employers are not owed slaves.
IrateAnteater@sh.itjust.works 2 days ago
The other side of the coin is that customers aren’t obligated to buy. There’s always a limit to how expensive you can make a product/service before people will simply stop paying for it. Trying to find that balance point can be damned difficult.
Lucelu2@lemmy.zip 1 day ago
A lot of union halls have expanded their apprentice programs – they just need qualified people to apply and unfortunately, many do not choose to stay preferring an air conditioned office or remote work from home or even the big box store vs the dirty, hot construction site+ classes (our IBEW actually has apprentices working 4 days and school 1 day, when my husband apprenticed, he went to school to nights a week after work). It is hard work, lifting heavy things, random drug testing, working off ladders, carrying a lot of tools and requires a good working knowledge of trigonometry (although many use apps on their phones now-- didn’t exist when he entered it). They are a lot more nicer to apprentices these days as well. It is interesting that we are seeing more middle aged people entering the apprentice programs now, second careers.