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Comment by tacitusarc | Hacker News Reader

Part of the problem is the suggestion that they need help in the first place. So what Joe the garbage truck driver didn't go to college? So what he has a small house in a kinda shitty neighborhood? Maybe he's doing the best he can and maybe he actually has a pretty happy life. The working class doesn't need pity and suggestions to move or go get a degree. Here's something novel: why are the roads in nice neighborhoods always better repaired than roads in poor neighborhoods? Instead of telling the working class to move or get college degrees, maybe advocate for equality in road repair.

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The situation at that level is far more dire. A non-union garbage truck driver doesn't have a house. Can't afford a family. No health insurance. No retirement plan or pension.

And if you go to any large company, you'll find that it's the same there unless you're in the upper "employee" caste--you're working for a contractor company, and have the same bad deal.

For all the discussion of diversity, any pathway out is pretty much closed. Even if you're in a historically disadvantaged group, the large company doesn't want to set a precedent that would establish the contractor group as employees. So the large company will block training and advancement, extracurricular networking opportunities, etc.

And historically disadvantaged minorities will be overrepresented in the contractor group because of both economic and educational disadvantage.

And to throw salt on it, arbitration agreements that you are forced to sign to work will preclude you using a class action suit to try to fix it, like Microsoft's testing group did in the 1990s. (Thank you Roberts court.)

That's a blanket statement that just doesn't hold true. Reality is much more mixed.

Here: https://www.indeed.com/cmp/Waste-Management-1/reviews?fcount...

Garbage truck drivers are actually surprisingly well paid, if I recall correctly, as the job is quite dangerous and dirty so not many people want to do it.

I always wonder how the mental model works for some people. They espouse a way to live that they think everyone should do, but that way includes not making your own food, hauling your own trash, or (at least for many of them) building your own things.

If they got their way, they’d have to do all the stuff they look down on other people for being competent at. But I don’t think they want them to do these things, they just want a way to either prop themselves up, or keep other people down.

Besides that, Joe the garbage truck driver may be a better dad than the people criticizing him.

He may be great dad theoretically, but if his job requires him to drive that truck for 12 hours a day and he is constantly in stress from lack of money or local crime and cant afford doctor to help him with back pain he got from the job, his ability to be that great dad is limited. Joe the garbage truck driver has limits just like anybody else.

The family growing up in "shitty neighborhood" likely means that kids are growing up seeing a lot of alcoholism or drug taking and so on and in them being in higher risk to internalizing that regardless of what parents do.

There are many people willing to do these jobs and not enough of these jobs - meaning people get overworked, mistreated and not much paid. There is this romantic idea of idyllic work-class families happy driving trucks that seem to ignore economic and physical realities of their situation.

This was no such an issue when unions were stronger.

The unions themselves grew fat and some of them corrupt, but cleaning that up discarded the baby along with the dirty bath water.

Around here road repair is allocated via property taxes. Pay more taxes because you live on a nicer street, and you will see more road repair.

This gets compounded because nicer streets also lobby for school bus stops central to them, which leads to even more dollars being spent there.

Last of all, if too little is being done on the roads then the neighbors on a nice street pool their money and privately fix the road themselves.

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