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PoAC: It's All About Resources
Oct. 5th, 2006 08:51 am"If those waitresses don't want to work in a smoky restaurant, they should find a different job."
"If those Wal-Mart employees don't want the new twenty-four-hour availability rules, they should quit."
"If pharmacists don't want to dispense birth control, they should find another job."
"If Justices of the Peace don't want to perform gay marriage ceremonies, they should look elsewhere for work."
It occurred to me that all of these are essentially the same argument. They're all about a worker choosing the environment or specifications under which he is willing to work. They all put the onus on the employee to decide what is acceptable personally for them, thereby absolving the employer of the responsibility for the decision made.
Yet the first two are repugnant to me, while the latter two seem perfectly reasonable. Why the apparent hypocrisy in my thinking?
A pharmacist has several years of university under her belt before she is granted a license. A JP is often a prominent citizen whose committment to public life spans many years, and usually involves a high level of education, as well. They are people with considerable resources at their disposal. Their higher education is both a cause and an effect of these resources; it takes money and vision to get a higher education, which in turn means better-paying jobs and a broader outlook on the world. These are people with problem-solving skills, the ability to make plans and execute them, and to adjust them along the way. Someone in these jobs has, almost by definition, the ability to dramatically affect their lot in life if they so desire. They have mobility. They have resources.
Excluding the student workforce and high-end restaurants, someone whose longtime job is at Wal-Mart or in a smoky diner has fewer resources. They probably have little education. They either lack, or have been denied the other resources to realize, any kind of vision for their own career path. They work in a highly-visible, low-paying job that almost anyone could be trained to do with little effort. They lack funds, because these jobs usually pay a pittance. In short, they lack both the physical and the mental/emotional resources to do much about their situation. If they were to quit their jobs, they'd likely end up in a similar low-paying job somewhere else. It might be an improvement. More likely, it would be a lateral move. Moreover, this workforce is unskilled and therefore easily replaceable. If they aren't willing to do whatever the management wants, they can be fired and someone else found to replace them. They have no job security, the central requirement for making a change in working conditions. All the decisions about their work are made by higher-ups. They have extremely limited resources.
These are, of course, generalizations. They're not true of everyone who works minimum-wage jobs. But they do represent a large segment of that workforce.
I believe in helping people achieve their full potential. I am a fan of government, charity, or corporate programs that believe the same. In situations where the employer has all the power, change has to come either from the top (company policy) or from outside (goverment regulation.) In situations where the employees have the resources to achieve their potential without help, though, I expect them to do that. In short, I believe in people taking as much responsibility as they have the resources to pull off.
It's all about resources.
"If those Wal-Mart employees don't want the new twenty-four-hour availability rules, they should quit."
"If pharmacists don't want to dispense birth control, they should find another job."
"If Justices of the Peace don't want to perform gay marriage ceremonies, they should look elsewhere for work."
It occurred to me that all of these are essentially the same argument. They're all about a worker choosing the environment or specifications under which he is willing to work. They all put the onus on the employee to decide what is acceptable personally for them, thereby absolving the employer of the responsibility for the decision made.
Yet the first two are repugnant to me, while the latter two seem perfectly reasonable. Why the apparent hypocrisy in my thinking?
A pharmacist has several years of university under her belt before she is granted a license. A JP is often a prominent citizen whose committment to public life spans many years, and usually involves a high level of education, as well. They are people with considerable resources at their disposal. Their higher education is both a cause and an effect of these resources; it takes money and vision to get a higher education, which in turn means better-paying jobs and a broader outlook on the world. These are people with problem-solving skills, the ability to make plans and execute them, and to adjust them along the way. Someone in these jobs has, almost by definition, the ability to dramatically affect their lot in life if they so desire. They have mobility. They have resources.
Excluding the student workforce and high-end restaurants, someone whose longtime job is at Wal-Mart or in a smoky diner has fewer resources. They probably have little education. They either lack, or have been denied the other resources to realize, any kind of vision for their own career path. They work in a highly-visible, low-paying job that almost anyone could be trained to do with little effort. They lack funds, because these jobs usually pay a pittance. In short, they lack both the physical and the mental/emotional resources to do much about their situation. If they were to quit their jobs, they'd likely end up in a similar low-paying job somewhere else. It might be an improvement. More likely, it would be a lateral move. Moreover, this workforce is unskilled and therefore easily replaceable. If they aren't willing to do whatever the management wants, they can be fired and someone else found to replace them. They have no job security, the central requirement for making a change in working conditions. All the decisions about their work are made by higher-ups. They have extremely limited resources.
These are, of course, generalizations. They're not true of everyone who works minimum-wage jobs. But they do represent a large segment of that workforce.
I believe in helping people achieve their full potential. I am a fan of government, charity, or corporate programs that believe the same. In situations where the employer has all the power, change has to come either from the top (company policy) or from outside (goverment regulation.) In situations where the employees have the resources to achieve their potential without help, though, I expect them to do that. In short, I believe in people taking as much responsibility as they have the resources to pull off.
It's all about resources.