Just think about it

There is no such thing as unskilled work

How could you say that? This is landlord erasure
- if only
- That's not work.
- I have been in an argument with a landlord before. They were arguing that it was a real job because of all the paperwork. I was just like... bruh
- I believe they prefer to be called "persons of land". /s
Everytime unskilled work is mentioned, someone feels the need to comment that ackchually all work requires skill.
Unskilled work means you don't need prior experience or specific education to apply. You will be trained on the job.
- Unskilled work means you don’t need prior experience or specific education to apply.
  It means whatever the employers want it to mean. But anyone who has worked anywhere for a significant length of time knows the value experience brings in a role.
  Whether you're packing boxes or picking fruit or doing brain surgery, the speed and accuracy of your work is predicated on experience. Not something you get through a crash course or a certificate. You have to do the work to learn the work in every field.
  That's what makes "unskilled" labor a myth.
- And framing labor this way totally disregars the time commitment. Which should be a thriving wage for any hob that requires 40hrs/week
- So installing HVAC systems is unskilled work? I didn't have any prior experience or education when I got a job doing that.
- That's not true though. I am a skilled machine operator, and I was hired with zero experience and trained on the job because there just aren't enough trained operators locally available in my industry.
Hey now, don't buy management long
Well, there's Amazon packing, where they recently sent me three cards in an A3 by 4" box. Ain't no way you could call that "skilled".

Calling any labor unskilled is fraternizing with the weapons of the enemy, we don't need it. Our greatest weapon is class consciousness and worker solidarity.

It never made sense to me. You spent 1 hour of your 24 hours a day doing something you would not do for fun. Your 1 hour is just as long as my 1 hour. Both of us sacrifice the same amount of free time out of our lives doing something we'd rather not do. Why should we be paid differently?
If anything, the higher ranking the job, the more it allows for chatting with colleagues, going out for lunch, taking coffee breaks. You get much more "fun time" than labor intense workers do. Shouldn't you be paid less? There is an added benefit in your job to begin with. The luxury of being able to sit and get coffee when you want to is already quite a blast tbh.
- True and, the inverse is the soul crushing monotony of the minimum wage job.
  I think the ones that should be compensated more are those that society really can't run without AND, are largely undesirable even with adequate compensation.

Or save a Word doc as pdf.

I work in academia. I’m a lowly paid adjunct who teaches 8 classes across 4 schools to make ends meet.
In the lead up to this semester, each school has had a mandatory Zoom meeting to get everyone involved on the same page.
In all 4 instances, I sat there and fucking seethed watching people who make upward of 10 times what I do just endlessly fumble with the technology while saying nothing of value for 2 hours.
It’s honestly amazing just how inept the manager class is.

In my experience only 20% of baristas are in fact skilled.

If 80% of the baristas were on paid leave for severe burns I don't think those companies would still be open.
Retail and hospitality workers have to have a number of skill sets just to keep from being fired day 1.
The number of people who refuse/can't work a POS system and complain that people who can are unskilled is always a comical thing.
Most anyone I've met who calls any job unskilled is an idiot who thinks to highly of themselves.
Then again many people think support positions aren't as important, and I tend to believe every position is a support position. Doctors support construction workers who support lawyers who support baristas who support salespeople who support hospitality who support entertainment who support plumbers who support IT members who support accountants who support banks who supports....

Who is complaining about unskilled workers?

Anyone who doesn’t think they should get a decent wage.
- Who is thinking that people shouldn't get a decent wage?

Thinking about it makes the argument really really poor. If I'm a construction worker who spent decades perfecting my skills so I get promoted to management, now I have to hire someone else to take my previous position. The whole point of paying someone to do something should be because your time is better spent doing something else. So a very skilled person SHOULD be paying someone to get coffee. So the whole concept falls apart.

This is based on the fallacy that people deserve to be rich because they are more skilled and work harder. In most cases this is not true. Most just use money to make more money. They don't actually produce anything useful for humanity.
- You understand that is a skill in and of itself. Which is why so many day traders end up going bankrupt. To be able to actually consistently make money off of money isn't magical, it doesn't happen automatically. If it did everyone would be far wealthier.
You’re missing the point. I don’t think most people have a problem saying there are different levels of skill based employment. Does designing a skyscraper take more skill than managing the lunch rush at a McDonald’s? Probably, but by saying working in fast food is an unskilled trade is propaganda to keep wages for those jobs low.
There is a definite skill for handling noon at a McDonald’s. Maybe it’s different than doing high level math for engineering but it’s not unskilled.
That’s where the issue is for most people that don’t like the punching down at “unskilled workers”
This is the same argument I have with my parents when they say that “unskilled workers” have jobs and not careers. And they use that as a justification for not paying them a living wage, “it’s not supposed to be a job forever” is usually the answer I get.
If you contribute 40 hours of labor to the country’s GDP, you should expect to be able to have shelter, food and medical care. That’s not asking a lot.
Creating a class of full time employees below that basic level is disgusting.
- Does designing a skyscraper take more skill than managing the lunch rush at a McDonald’s?
  I feel like it'd honestly be hard to compare, because it's such a vastly different skillset/task.
  It's like the differences between writing a technical manual and wrangling a clowder of cats on crack.
  With enough education, care and time, anyone could probably achieve the first (even if you suck at it, you can just do it again until it's acceptable, there's no rush), but even attempting the second takes a certain...je ne sais quoi.
- If you contribute 40 hours of labor to the country’s GDP, you should expect to be able to have shelter, food and medical care. That’s not asking a lot.
  That's 1000% true, but that doesn't change the fact that there are jobs you can do from walking in off the street with an hour or two of training, and there are jobs that you need more training/background/skills to do.
  All full time work should provide enough for a basic standard of living. But arguing that there isn't a difference in required skill between stocking shelves in an Amazon warehouse and say, diagnosing and treating cancer is absurd.
  That's going to significantly undermine your argument with a lot of people.
  As far as your parents go, historically a lot of those jobs were populated primarily by high school students or people trying to make some side cash, and it wasn't as hard to find employment in a more stable "career" job. The economy worked in a way where having dead end "starter" jobs still "worked".
  They just probably aren't as aware of the fact that more and more people are getting stuck in those jobs due to no fault of their own. The idea is truly and utterly alien to them if they haven't had to navigate job hunting since they started their "career" job.
  The idea that people who didn't make poor life choices are trying to survive off working at McDonalds doesn't mesh with their understanding of how the world works. The idea that someone working at Walmart full time can't afford to live without government assistance doesn't seem real.
  The last time they had to directly deal with that sort of stuff, no one was trying to survive that way because you could much more easily move to a job you could survive on if you just put in a small amount of effort. It might have been another shitty job, but options were there if you just looked. Not too long ago you could survive off Walmart.
  All you can really do is to keep insisting that times have changed. Jobs aren't just waiting for someone to ask to speak to the manager, and pay has not kept pace with costs of stuff increasing.
  Trying to argue that a fry cook deserves to be paid as much as a skilled position will always be a non-starter.
- That's just not true. Resources are split based on value of work regardless of the actual skill involved. The whole unskilled labor argument is nonsense to begin with as you point out, everything is a skill. If any rich person is complaining about unskilled labor, I'd assume they're complaining that the skill of the employee doesn't produce the results required so the person is unskilled, not that the job itself is unskilled. For example, a rich person complaining that the unskilled labor at McDonald's isn't a complaint that the job requires no skill, just that either the company didn't train the person right or the person is unable to attain the skills necessary. After all, if they did everything properly, they wouldn't be complaining about unskilled labor to begin with.
  Obviously, that isn't going to stand true for every instance of unskilled labor. But what it seems to me is that you're confusing the rich with the poor. People like your parents complain about unskilled labor because they don't understand what the rich are saying. I see that a lot. But that's like using people who don't understand rocket science complaining about solar flares affecting rocket ships. It's a massive misunderstanding between the scientists who are talking about solar flares and the common man who doesn't understand.
If I’m a construction worker who spent decades perfecting my skills so I get promoted to management
Tell me you've never worked construction without telling me you've never worked construction.
Or management, for that matter. You'll get managers straight out of college overseeing career specialists on the verge of retirement.