• unemployedclaquer@sopuli.xyz
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    15 days ago

    Could be a troll? The only difference is that food service is gross and squishy. Amazon has so automated the box packing that the hardest part is getting zoned out in the monotony and forgetting some critical step before you send the box away.

    “Skilled labor” lmao. Look it up and sites like indeed.com call it having a law degree.

    • Apytele@sh.itjust.works
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      16 days ago

      My tech who knows how to take and read basic vital signs, flip granny like a pancake and wash her genitals without giving her an infection, walk her to the bathroom without yanking her IV out or cracking her head on the floor, the basic legal aspects of a psych admission, and the basics of psychosis, mania, etc well enough to briefly counsel a patient on their symptoms and which ones are important enough to notify me about-

      -makes 16 an hour. Not that the warehouse worker doesn’t deserve a living wage, but to call that skilled labor, and especially more skilled labor than food service is frankly delusional.

      Even my partner who does work in food service knows more than the warehouse worker because he knows the biology and chemistry of food safety and sanitation, prevention of allergen cross contamination, knife / sharps safety, and fire and fire extinguisher classifications and how to put out a grease fire-

      -and that was before he got a job in the hospital kitchen where he also learned about specialized medical diets including food and drink thicknesses and consistencies, sodium and carb restrictions, and even safety trays for violent and suicidal patients.

      What’s in that warehouse training? How to lift with your knees instead of your back and rotating stock? Storage temperatures? Because food service does all that too. The only thing they might know more about than a food service worker is how to use a forklift, and that’s only if their employer thought they were intelligent and level headed enough to bother training on one, and this post does not evidence those qualities.

        • letsgo@lemm.ee
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          16 days ago

          OK, so what skill is needed to put Box A into Box B where Box B is three times the size of Box A?

          What does the training involve?

          Are there really people out there who can’t do that (excluding reasons like physical disability)?

          • Dragon "Rider"(drag)@lemmy.nz
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            16 days ago

            Drag doesn’t know what the legal and organisational standards are on the amount of packing material to cushion fragile items, or what kinds of tape need to be used.

          • Dragon "Rider"(drag)@lemmy.nz
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            16 days ago

            Drag doesn’t know how to make a big mac. Drag doesn’t know the procedure for packing an Amazon box. Drag doesn’t know how to turn on the stove or where to find the tape. And drag sure couldn’t do it as fast as the pros, even with instruction.

        • StopJoiningWars@discuss.online
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          16 days ago

          You can rank anything, and piling boxes such that they don’t fall over and kill someone is more dangerous with more expertise than cooking McDonald’s burgers for 2min then doing it again.

        • wreckedcarzz@lemmy.world
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          14 days ago

          You should visit my local mcd then, you’d change your opinion of unskilled not existing. Patty has to go between the buns? Nah. Forgot the cheese? Just throw it on cold and go. Order has to be remotely correct? Nah, custom orders get ignored. Fries have to have more rigidity than a 94 year old’s boner? Nah, in fact here is some extra grease just seeping into everything from the fry box. Drink machine broken, everyone gets sprite, no refunds. We ran out of patties 4h before closing, are undercooked chicken nuggets okay?

          Like I get mcd locations are usually franchised but holy fuck, when I pay $12 for a big mac meal and it looks and tastes like a vegetarian 4 year old built it, we have issues. A decade ago it cost $6 and was at least kind of decent food… Now it’s just ass all-around.

      • EldritchFeminity@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        16 days ago

        Aircraft engineers and mechanics used to be considered unskilled labor until the 1950s. They were only “reclassified” during the Cold War because there weren’t enough people going into the profession to keep up with the demand.

  • WoahWoah@lemmy.world
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    14 days ago

    Real question: is box packing at an Amazon fulfillment center considered “skilled” labor? If so, so is flipping burgers, I would assume. In which case, what exactly is unskilled labor? I thought it was basically any job you can get/do without any degrees, formal prior training, and/or certifications.

    As far as I can tell, this is two eminently replaceable, definitionally unskilled laborers hating each other over who is getting fucked over harder.

  • Stern@lemmy.world
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    16 days ago

    lol packing boxes at Amazon being skilled labor in comparison to the burger dudes. Like, my dude, you’re about half a step above the dude putting a burger together then packing a bag with it, and I’m being generous.

      • TrueStoryBob@lemmy.world
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        15 days ago

        Was literally going to say… there’s more regulations/certifications in food prep, both for the business itself and the workers, than a lot of other jobs.

    • InFerNo@lemmy.ml
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      16 days ago

      Packing a box seems easier than operating the machines at mcdos. Timing the operation, consistency, time pressure, angry clients, …

    • Ricky Rigatoni@lemm.ee
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      15 days ago

      And like. We’ve all ordered from amazon. We know how they pack boxes. There’s no skill involved there.

  • kittenzrulz123@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    15 days ago

    Some people dont understand that if the workers own the economy everyone benefits, also it doesn’t matter how “skilled” your labor is when you’re replaceable.

    • NavySqueal@lemmy.world
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      16 days ago

      Those bathrooms are proof those employees don’t receive the hazard pay they should to clean those things. Mcdonalds.

        • Wino@lemmy.cafe
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          16 days ago

          Man, if you have to be a dick to people on the internet to feel special I don’t know what to tell you.

          • Ogmios@sh.itjust.works
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            16 days ago

            On a ragebait post specifically about being a dick to an obvious strawman.

            Sorry, but if you’re so eager to hate that you fail to notice this incredibly obvious troll, you should look in a mirror before accusing others of being dicks.

    • Hagdos@lemmy.world
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      16 days ago

      I think the skilled labour guy is using sarcasm, and the rest of the internet is not picking up on it.

  • friend_of_satan@lemmy.world
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    16 days ago

    The difference in pay is easier to understand if we keep the time increments the same:

    Dude: $16/hr

    Bezos: $9,000,000/hr

    Bezos makes 562,500 times as much.

    Edit: added a missing zero

    • philthi@lemmy.world
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      16 days ago

      I agree with your point, but I’m struggling with your numbers… Is it $9,000.00/hr or $900,000/HR?

      Editting myself to add: either is a horrific amount for one man to earn

      • Kazumara@discuss.tchncs.de
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        16 days ago

        If we take the 150,000 / min from the meme as given, then that’s 9,000,000 / h. That also gels with the factor of 562,500. I think friend_of_satan just dropped a 0 there.

  • caboose2006@lemmy.ca
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    16 days ago

    I think we’re all missing the point here, and this is how they divide us. (By they I mean monied interests). Back in the 60s you could get a job air hammering in the same 8 bolts all day that would provide you a house, car, and your spouse doesn’t work and you have 2 kids and go on vacation twice a year and the company takes care of your retirement. Both of these jobs (in ops post) require the same or more skill to do and you can’t even afford to rent a studio apartment on your own. We need to stop looking at other “unskilled” labor and saying “they better not make a much as me” and start asking “hold on, why can’t we both make more?” Rising tides lift all ships. The only people that suffer are the multi millionaires.

    This isnt radical. If you work full time you should be able to afford what your parents and grandparents had in the 60s working full time.

    • Asafum@feddit.nl
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      15 days ago

      It’s getting to the point that just renting an illegal basement “apartment” requires 2 incomes in some places… I make $30/hr and almost half my income goes to this shit garage apartment I live in… Forget “legitimate” apartments, those prices are just absolute insanity.

      Without looking at “professional” college degree required jobs, the VAST majority of jobs out there pay barely over $20/hr where I am… Where are you going to live on that kind of garbage?

      I cannot stand the focus on “family income.” It completely ignores the experience of the individual and lumps multiple incomes together to try to claim that people are doing well… Yeah well fuck me for being undesirable and permanently single.

    • andrew_bidlaw@sh.itjust.works
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      16 days ago

      Honest labor is honest labor, whatever it’s moping the floor or engineering new bridges and rockets. We need each other. And we all want to have a sufficient amount of these funny play-money papers once we clock out for today, or, rather, not feeling limited by the lack of them up to the point of starvation.

    • wewbull@feddit.uk
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      16 days ago

      No. “Skilled labour” means that you’re hiring someone because of a skill or training they already have.

      A carpenter is skilled labour because you expect a carpenter to already be able to work with wood. Your not going to train them from scratch on the job. They’ll already have served as an apprentice or been trained in some other way.

      A fork lift driver would need to have a license before you hired them. Skilled labour.

      Somebody packing boxes or flipping burger is “unskilled labour”. On day 1 you’ll be taught the job. There will be no prerequisite skills needed. It doesn’t mean “there’s no skill in this job”, just that “there is no requirement to have a skill to apply this job”.

      • itslilith@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        16 days ago

        They get taught the job, making them… skilled?

        A carpenter gets an apprenticeship for 2-3 years where they get taught the job, does that make it unskilled as well?

        Some jobs are easier to learn than others, that doesn’t mean they’re easier or worth less, or require no skills.

        • wewbull@feddit.uk
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          15 days ago

          It makes the apprenticeship an “unskilled” hire, but afterwards they’d be a “skilled” hire for any carpentry job.

          The term just means “Is there some required experience for this job on day 1?” not “Does this job require skill to do it well” because that’s true of all jobs.

  • Ghostalmedia@lemmy.world
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    15 days ago

    I want Amazon fulfillment center workers to be paid a living wage, but calling some of those jobs “skilled” is stretch.

    • nepenthes@lemmy.world
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      15 days ago

      Ugh… Dumbasses must’ve been terrible at Tetris.

      But seriously, that box took up so much erroneous space on the transporting vehicle, displacing other boxes that had to move to yet more vehicles. The extra emissions from these failed attempts at protecting the item (which is pushed up against the wall of the box, vulnerable anyways), is sad.

    • Noxy@yiffit.net
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      14 days ago

      Don’t blame the worker for results of working conditions they didn’t create.

      Amazon is known for micromanaging every aspect of warehouse work, do you really think Amazon lets workers take the time and initiative to select which type of box a thing gets put into? Hell no, all the company cares about is getting shit shipped as fast as possible.

      This is a symptom of Amazon’s management, not the fault of any one worker.

    • Rekorse@sh.itjust.works
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      15 days ago

      The phrase has lost all meaning. People just assume its a personal attack now cause I guess American egos are in decline or something.

      Waxing moon or some shit.

      • Zanz@lemmy.world
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        14 days ago

        Fry Cooks have to take classes on food safety. They are skilled labor. I’m not sure about the Amazon box guy but maybe both should have the trade union you need to be “skilled labor” in the actual sense of it.

      • Ghostalmedia@lemmy.world
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        15 days ago

        Instead of reasonable pay, you’re offered a title and persistent lies about career growth. And it feels pretty shitty when you’re confronted with the fact that you’ve invested a bunch of energy in something that won’t pay off.

    • dependencyinjection@discuss.tchncs.de
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      16 days ago

      All labour is skilled labour. If you have to be trained how to do something it’s a skill.

      You think packing boxes is just putting things in boxes but I’m sure there is more to it, particularly when working for dystopian Amazon where they’re very strict with KPIs.

      People called it unskilled labour as a means to pay people less.

      • letsgo@lemm.ee
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        16 days ago

        Given the size of the boxes my Amazon stuff comes in you’d have to be extremely challenged not to be able to get that stuff in there. They’re not exactly solving the Knapsack Packing Problem multiple times a day.

        • dependencyinjection@discuss.tchncs.de
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          16 days ago

          My understanding is some algorithm decides what size box to use for an order, the packer packs that box.

          The skill comes from the repetition of doing the task to become efficient enough not to be taken out back and put down by Bezos.

      • KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        15 days ago

        All labour is skilled labour. If you have to be trained how to do something it’s a skill.

        semantically sure, but im pretty sure the implication is that it’s a heavily skill based field, something that you can’t just show up and start doing. As the term skilled labor would imply.

        Would you consider someone who just learned chess to be a “skilled player” or would you consider someone who has quite the substantial knowledge of chess, and the ability to play very competently a “skilled player”

      • Wrench@lemmy.world
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        15 days ago

        Eh. If you can replace someone with practically any able bodied person off the street and a week of training, it’s not skilled labor.

        Can you technically argue that 1 week of training equates to becoming “skilled”? Sure, but it’s a dumb line to draw IMO.

        • dependencyinjection@discuss.tchncs.de
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          15 days ago

          I think it fits the dictionary definition. Don’t you?

          skill /skĭl/

          noun

          1. Proficiency, facility, or dexterity that is acquired or developed through training or experience.

            “painted with great skill.”

          2. A developed talent or ability.

            “improved his writing skills.”

          3. An art, trade, or technique, particularly one requiring use of the hands or body.

            “the skill of glassmaking.”

    • neidu2@feddit.nl
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      16 days ago

      If anything, I’d claim that burger flipping requires more skill than item boxing.

    • TehBamski@lemmy.worldOP
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      16 days ago

      It’s a skill. Just a lower skill, as it’s not that hard to learn or become good at it.

      • Maalus@lemmy.world
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        16 days ago

        Yeah and that’s what “skilled labor” means. It is about people with higher skills required for their job, skills that are in high demand. There is a huge difference between a doctor, programmer, CAD designer, and a cashier.

  • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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    15 days ago

    TIL putting stuff in boxes is skilled labor but flipping burgers isn’t.

    /Eyeroll

  • bdonvr@thelemmy.club
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    16 days ago

    Crab ass mentality. You should be asking why you get paid so little not keeping everyone else down

    And the fast food shit is probably about as skilled as packing Amazon boxes the fuck you on about

    • theangryseal@lemmy.world
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      16 days ago

      Bro, I went to college and got a degree in packinology. Not everyone is qualified to use scotch tape and bubble wrap. You know how many people die every year choking on packing peanuts?

      A brain sturgeon ain’t got shit on me.