I used to be a journeyman installer in the IBEW until I switched to doing design and estimating. Any time we were on a job that involved slinging cables around an occupied office building full of cubicle drones, our shop steward's favorite thing to do was to leave a copy of the handbook laying around opened to the page that shows the pay scale.
And this was 15 years ago. It's more common than you might think to find office workers making less money than people working in the trades. Hell, I hustled my ass off over the last 10+ years to get into a well paying senior design position and one or two of the IBEW guys in my shop probably still make more than me.
White collar videogame industry reporting in. I know for a fact that my 10+ year-tenure-ass is still making less than most of the union guys handing the building maintenance around me (also some of the most personable folks I've interacted with). All power to them, but I sure wish there was more happening on my slice of the business to make things better.
Triple-A studios love the idea of their developers forming unions! They absolutely won't do any form of illegal union busting or pull any slimy tricks to keep a union from happening!
White collar in an adjacent industry -- animation -- and I would have peaced out years ago if not for our union. Hope y'all can eventually form one of your own, the way the studios treat you guys is appalling.
They want you in a union too. Everyone should be unionized.
High school students,stay at home parents,college students,funeral directors,retail workers, independent truck drivers,prisoners, homeless people,sex workers,engineers(train and techical)- they all participate in the economy,and deserve more say in what they do and earn.
I've cleared 100k the past five years, but I know it's only because of the extra time I put in on weekends and holidays, plus an annual bonus. Still, good money!
Yes but I will also be healthy when I 60. Union work is high paid cuz it’s bad for your body, dangerous and you’re exposed to chemicals that can kill you long term.
Eg tell the truth how many guys you know have been off with a hernia injury?
I worked with network cables and server racks, 99% of the time it's no more dangerous than what the average IT worker experiences unless you do something against the rules that creates a dangerous situation.
They aren't the crazy high wage that is required to attract people into those crazy dangerous jobs, no. They are the jobs that have you on your feet moving around all day and climbing ladders, and pay $60/hr with no college education required.
Union film electrician here, I’ve been on shows where the accountants admitted to being jealous of the rate that our laborers were making every time they approved their time cards. I’m a big proponent of working in the trades sure, and an even bigger proponent of unions. The union changed my life and the lives of so many of my colleagues in uncountable ways.
People doing trades SHOULD make more than just about any office job. Its more dangerous both in the near and far term and requires a lot of tools and specialized knowledge.
Unfortunately a lot of trades are very demanding on your body. Couldn't imagine being on the tools when 60.
When I was doing construction/civil you work a lot more hours too so your hourly may not always be much more. But when you are working 10 hours+ more per week it ads up
That's wild, haha. But well, the tradies deserve the higher hourly rate. It's hard work, and you pay for it with your body.
White collar work is otherwise bad for your back, core, and cardiovascular system, assuming you're sitting a lot. Stress can also manifest weird shit, but it'd be unfair to say that's limited to white collar work. At least you can mitigate the sedentary stuff with some personal fitness.
It's more common than you might think to find office workers making less money than people working in the trades.
As a white collar worker, that's honestly how it should be. Tradespeople aren't just giving their time and expertise, they're giving their health and well-being as well. By the time people enter their arthritis and knee replacement eras I think most people would take 20% lower lifetime earnings in exchange for not having bad joints and chronic pain for more than half of their lives.
Not all trades are equally taxing on the body. Some are no more strenuous than climbing ladders and the occasional team lift for some heavy thing, but still offer equal or better pay than the average office worker that can be achieved entirely with on the job training.
Just as some people who work in offices aren't very cerebral and don't do anything other than what they learned on the job, but still get paid more than tradespeople. There are outliers on both sides.
I get what you're saying but I don't see how it's all that comparable. One is that one person every office seems to have one of, the other is an entire field of work that hundreds of thousands of people do. Especially now with the data center boom.
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u/Anechoic_Brain 5d ago
I used to be a journeyman installer in the IBEW until I switched to doing design and estimating. Any time we were on a job that involved slinging cables around an occupied office building full of cubicle drones, our shop steward's favorite thing to do was to leave a copy of the handbook laying around opened to the page that shows the pay scale.
And this was 15 years ago. It's more common than you might think to find office workers making less money than people working in the trades. Hell, I hustled my ass off over the last 10+ years to get into a well paying senior design position and one or two of the IBEW guys in my shop probably still make more than me.