www.thefabricator.com: In the summer of 2014, I launched the Still Building America blog for The Fabricator in direct response to this old trope: “Kids don’t want to work anymore.” But based on my experiences working on the road across this country, I saw something different. Both in person and on social media, I found young men and women passionately finding their footing in the blue-collar world, contradicting that tired narrative pushed by companies and industry lobbyists.
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This article had some important things to say about compensation and respect for young workers. I don't think there is necessarily a shared value among the younger generation of "not wanting to work". I think that most people seek to find a job that they will enjoy and that fits their lifestyle, but they are willing to work. That being said, people of any age are unlikely to devote all of their time to a job where they aren't being fairly compensated. For employers to say that young people refuse to work for them no matter the wages they are offering is unfair and untrue. If you increase the pay you are offering, you will get more workers. That's basic supply and demand. Additionally, especially in today's society, respect is a really important value in the workplace. Nobody wants to go spend their time at a job where they aren't valued or at the very least, treated like a person. Especially nowadays, many young people are willingly to quit their job if they feel like they are not being treated the way the should be.
Personally as a young person, I will do whatever work I can get my hands on but I also understand that a lot of people my age do not have that mindset either, but I will say a lot more people do have the mindset that I do than older people would like to think. I feel like most of my peers hold the same mindset that I do and so I am not sure where the stereotype that the younger generations do not want to work came from. I feel like by having the mindset that a lot of older workers do, they alienate the younger generations from picking up the same kinds of work and keeping their industries alive. I wonder which industries are feeling the strain the most with regards to a diminishing workforce due to lack of new and young workers willing to learn the trade.
Articles like this one make me curious about what percentage of the fabrication industry is experiencing these issues relating to respect and introductory level pay and if there is any interesting correlations between experience or demographics of these business owners that determine employee satisfaction within their job. It seems that with different circumstances based on a new economy and higher access to information of suitable alternatives, it has become increasingly important for companies to cater to their employees rather than to take their labor for granted based on pre-established relationships or reputation. Ultimately, now that people can find these kinds of skilled jobs easier online, there is more chance for comparison when one may be struggling financially to then improve their condition and earnings. Finally, it is interesting how respect and attitude of bosses and companies as a whole is playing a larger role in how employees decide where to work and what they’re willing to tolerate within the workplace. As the information to alternatives increases and as norms become more known, unideal conditions are becoming less tolerated and shifting the attitudes of the industry it seems.
Last summer, I was the youngest person working on the set of a non-union indie movie that filmed in Western New Jersey. I’d drive an hour and a half to and from the set every day, five days a week, sometimes for twelve hour days with a single thirty minute break. I skipped my last week of high school because I thought it would be a good opportunity. In a lot of ways, it was; I learned how sets work and what jobs a costume PA does. But, more than anything, I learned that some people in positions of power love to treat those below them like they’re subhuman because they’re green. If I wanted to use the bathroom, I wasn’t allowed to use the one in the costume room (it had been converted into a dressing room) and I could either drive ten minutes to the nearest Subway or go in the woods nearby. Either option would cut into my 30 minutes of lunch. There were a lot of little things like that, and they built up over time. By the end of the process, I felt like I wasn’t worth anything but labor. As unfortunate of an experience as it was in some ways, it also taught me what signs to look out for and what kind of environments to stay away from.
I’ve always found this kind of stereotype of my generation to be laughable. It was never really that young people didn’t want to work, it was always about the fact that we know how to stand up for ourselves. We have expectations of how we want to be treated in the workplace, and of course there's always some lazy people but that's true for every age group. As is that there are some incredibly hardworking people in every age group. It really isn’t fair for an entire group of people to be stereotyped negatively for the fact that we have expectations and standards for how we want to be treated when in reality the only difference between young people verses old is that we learned to prioritize ourselves over our work and its unfortunate that a mindset like that didn’t come around sooner. It's like the mentality “if I had to do it the hard way so do you” and it really just doesn’t make sense for everyone involved. I hope negative stereotypes like this change in the future.
I think the first sentence of this article, "Evolve and adapt or be left behind," summarizes the main idea very well. The subject of the title, "Kids," doesn't want to work anymore, which seems to be a prejudice against millennials. People always think that young people nowadays are arbitrary. I don't think some of the negative examples mentioned in the article are only seen among young people. It can be said that people of all ages, even all working classes, from management to workers, may have some kind of passive slacking. This is not a problem exclusive to young people. However, this may also show to some extent the state of value discontinuity among different age groups in society. People with a large age difference may not have similar ideas. So it may be that young people are more pursuing salary and benefits, while the older generation is more pursuing a stable state. But I don't think either side is wrong. It's just that if people of different ages can evolve together and keep up with the times, it may make all industries develop more healthily.
This article does a great job of addressing some of the biggest reasons why younger generations can be discouraged from joining the workforce. Today’s economy is way different from the economy that the retiring workforce came up in, but it’s often overlooked. Wages that we might consider low today might’ve been considered high 50 years ago, but it’s not a statement on the cost of living as much as it is on inflation. Welton’s example of Johnson’s hardworking employee is a much more accurate representation of the new workforce and how they should be treated. The employee in question is obviously a hard worker both on the job and off, and his effort is recognized and he is compensated for it. It’s unreasonable to think that people will work under the same conditions and for the same wages that were normal half a century ago. I’m excited to see how the workplace changes as people of younger generations start to take over and become the people in positions of power.
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