this post was submitted on 21 Jan 2024
285 points (86.8% liked)
unions
2034 readers
51 users here now
a community focused on union news, info, discussion, etc
Friends:
- https://lemmy.ml/c/labor
- https://sh.itjust.works/c/unions
- https://lemmy.ml/c/coops
- https://lemmy.ml/c/antitrust
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
This is trying to ride a thin line and I don't think it hits the mark. Sure, there are skills involved in any labor. But "unskilled" is just shorthand for not having particular requirements that are rare enough that labor gets to charge more for them. It's not a myth that there are jobs where a large enough group of people can do the job and it pulls down the price you can charge for your labor when you are doing the job.
If anything this is an argument for a higher minimum wage, not a union.
The myth is that the numbers represent an objective value of a human. That is false. Supply and demand aren't a myth. They aren't the only way wages are determined, sure. But try to hire an accredited dentist for minimum wage, you can't because there aren't enough of them. That is a supply constraint that increases the prices dentists can charge.
That's not objective and not even a free market, a good amount of the price is because we have decided a certain group of people set the standard for what constitutes an accredited dentist and they decided on including X amount of schooling that costs a certain amount of money etc. But it is a supply constraint that raises the cost to hire a dentist, there is a supply and demand component in there.
It can lead to morally bad results and be something that needs to be fixed (via, for example, the minimum wage I mentioned or...naming and shaming as you imply to be the fix) while not being a myth. Supply and demand exist.