1948

It really is as simple as student loan debt and the cost of a college education has skyrocketed while wages for college educated employees has not.

I have worked out of my debt, but I was 32 and didn’t have enough saved for a house.

You get a job making 15/hour with a college degree and 20-30k in debt, you just don’t have enough money to save up for large purchases.

1949

Not to mention the cost of rent doesn’t help. The places I lived in when I was young and didn’t make anything are just horrific, drug infested horrible apartments now, and the only dense housing that seems to be built around here are retirement centers for seniors.

Some of the young people making very little can’t find decent paying jobs or decent places to live and are saddled with debt they may never payoff… and this includes some who actually got their degrees, not just the ones who went and wound up with debt for… nothing.

I am a big fan of consequences and hard-work but this scenario above can’t just be left alone. It’s not going to work itself out and that’s a productive young group there that we can help.

1950

My god, if we had unions like this.

1951

My God I hope not. Sounds terrible.

1952

Not to me.

1953

Sounds like people fighting against income inequality.

1954

Cutting wages is a pretty drastic step. It’s also the postal service and based on what little news, in English, I could find, they’re struggling with lower volumes like ours is. But hey a functional union can still do a lot.

1955

That sounded off, Fins are not unreasonable. I found this coverage, which probably wasn’t written when others commented.

Antti Rinne, who only took office in June, has faced heavy criticism in recent days over how he and a fellow Social Democratic minister dealt with a two-week strike of the country’s state-owned postal service Posti in November.

Rinne, who used to be a trade union leader, and Sirpa Paatero were accused of giving inaccurate and contradictory information in the run-up to the strike, specifically over the transfer of work contracts for 700 Posti package handlers, which effectively would have led to lower pay. Paatero, a minister who was in charge of state-owned companies, resigned on Friday.

1956

Well I didn’t find a lot info on this other than some specific info on the strike itself. The idea that postal office volumes and profits being down sounded reasonable… but again pay cuts are unusual. It’s not, well there are all kinds of books and advice about laying off people over dropping wages. A transfer of contracts that leads to pay cut is certainly different than just waking up and lowering wages. The other one I saw mentioned previous change too that added additional working days to the year, 3, without additional pay which is also effectively a pay cut.

I didn’t mean to imply the workers request was unusual so much as the postal space itself is likely a struggle in many countries.

That’s a paywall, so I didn’t get see the article you saw.

1957

Ah, sorry, it’s an extension, I don’t even know what sites it works on.
What I mean is, the finnish government wanting to fire 700 people and getting a lot of state employees to disagree so strongly didn’t sound like them. I’d think they would try other ways first, and maybe later even reach an agreement that there was no solution.
Being pissed by due to having been lied to by their boss, that’s reasonable, because they would be next (because that’s what happens in the eurozone).

EDIT: that sounded dirty

1958

Yeah. I guess that’s where the resigning comes in. They’re fortunate to have what seems like a very effective union.

1959

Not news to anyone in this thread, I’m sure, but a nicely written summary.

1960

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/administrative-assistant-jobs-helped-propel-many-women-into-the-middle-class-now-theyre-disappearing/2019/12/04/75686efe-f6a0-11e9-a285-882a8e386a96_story.html

For those facing the paywall, the summary is basically everyone is focusing on employment losses focused on men, like truck drivers and in manufacturing, but once again the losses for women are essentially ignored.

The United States has shed more than 2.1 million administrative and office support jobs since 2000, Labor Department data shows, eroding what for decades had been a reliable path to the middle class for women without college degrees.

“If you think about the amount of emotional energy we’ve devoted to what the future of truck drivers is as opposed to the future of administrative assistants, it’s mind-boggling,” Gimbel said. “We’re so focused on jobs that men do that we allow the suffering of women in this area to be silent.”

1961

The salary curve here in Spain looks like a flat desert compared to the US. Here if you make, say. 5x median you are in the top 1% of income earners (although there are not clear statistics at this level)

1962

I’ve seen this in a major way firsthand with law firm secretaries. When I started 20+ years ago as an attorney, we had one secretary for every two attorneys. Now we have one secretary for every eight attorneys. And I know that reduction in positions is not isolated, it is a well recognized law firm trend.

And with my firm, I cannot offhand think of a single secretary position that is staffed by a man. They are all women (which says something in its own right).

1963

Healthcare has this too, sort of. I mean it was already going out the door before I arrived, so it’s probably not as close to what it was years ago even when I saw it but the higher-ups each used to have assistants… and a few still do. It’s almost always based on how hard that person fought to keep their help, and when that person retires, the next one is not likely to come in and get one again… it’s essentially a dead title when it’s based on how much a long-timer complains to keep it.

These are not umm entry level position or salaries either. They need to know a fair amount of stuff and get paid pretty well… middle class.

1964

Exactly right. With law firms too, these aren’t basic, entry level positions. They are certified on functions and applications, and need to have some capabilities with regard to legal work. And the salaries are good. Like you said with healthcare, they’re just aging out, and being pared down as they do so.

1965

And the article points out, some of the women in these positions have worked for years doing this work, so we’re talking about 50+ years of age, too far from retirement to just stop, but even worse off than mnf. and truck drivers because… no one seems to care.

I just think no matter what we do, retraining programs for anyone displaced, anyone, should be implemented across the country, financially well-supported, and easily accessible. If someone, mostly women but yeah some men, can handle administrative work like that, they’re more than capable of learning something else. Oh yeah and some sort of incentive for employers to higher from those programs too because yeah, it’s usually someone who worked awhile already so a little higher up there in age.

1966

I’m shocked, shocked to learn that gambling is going on in this establishment.

1967

Your winnings, sir.