I work in a hospital. It’s also the worst flu season in recent years in my hospital. You know whose job is one of the most crucial for EVERYONE, doctors and medical staff included? Janitors. Go ahead and try to have a safe working environment, ESPECIALLY in the medical field, without them.
Tell me, do you know how to best create a medically safe work environment? Because I sure as fuck don’t, but the janitors do, and they know this while being on their feet and performing manually exhausting tasks for 8+ hours straight surrounded by caustic chemicals.
Same goes for fast food workers. Do you have any idea how much knowledge and physical work goes into working in a kitchen? Wanna tell me you put out grease fires, what temperatures different foods are stored in, and how to keep a safe working environment for both customers and workers in a job surrounded by hot oil, ovens and chemicals? Not to mention, again, being on your feet for 8+ hours in a hot kitchen being yelled at by customers constantly.
I promise you that these people do a more difficult and oftentimes more important job than a large portion of office jobs I’ve been in.
Fun fact: In my neck of the woods, hospital janitorial staff union wanted a pay raise. Their workers were struggling. The hospitals laughed at them, so they went on full strike.
The hospitals were in crisis mode within an HOUR.
Surgical rooms were not being cleaned, toilets and patient rooms were not cleaned, garbage was not picked up, instruments that get reused were not being cleaned (i.e. scalpels, patient beds), laundry wasn’t done, floors were not clean, biohazard waste wasn’t collected.
The hospitals folded the next day and the union got EVERYTHING they asked for.
Now, you may not work in a hospital @purest-rain but wherever you do work, just imagine what might happen if… suddenly no one cleaned. No one picks up the trash in that fancy office. No one vacuums or sweeps, or cleans anything. Nothing. Not the toilets, not the offices. It might take a little longer, but pretty soon, those fancy law-offices look pretty gross, don’t they? Especially the bathrooms. I’ve cleaned bathrooms, I know exactly how disgusting people are when they use a toilet they don’t have to clean.
Stop shitting on low-wage workers just because you don’t understand how important their job actually is. You cannot simultaneously demand a service, while dehumanizing the person who provides you with it, and demanding they not be compensated fairly.
The fact that so many people are getting so defensive about this is disgustingly sad. If you think “anyone can do it” then YOU do it. The job is necessary for your convenience, so fucking be a little more goddamn appreciative.
Also, I suspect those who assume that the only people making poverty-level wages these days would be surprised to learn just how many “skilled” jobs, including those that require college degrees, are part of what we’re discussing.
And that given how many jobs *period* require college degrees, shitting on janitors and fast-food workers and such for not “earning themselves a better life” is synonymous with shitting on anyone who simply *couldn’t afford* to go to college in the first place.
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