Of course tech workers are working class. You either give your labour for a living or you invest capital in businesses, and almost every tech worker is doing the former.
> our jobs do not destroy our bodies
I've got news for you there.
> our jobs do not destroy our bodies
I've got news for you there.
It is delusional to think our jobs are on the same level as someone who grafts all day with their hands and does back breaking work for minimum wage.
It is physically easy and it is very different from the other jobs I've listed.
Our jobs aren't working class.
Edit: by the by, boiler engineers are not paid well. A self-employed plumber with a gas cert can earn a good wage, but your average british gas tradie isn't bringing home half of what I earn
Yes, people who do not rely on overwhelmingly on selling labor for their support are not working class (people who are working class might transitionally be on support without working, or might be on support while working, depending on the benefit structure, but if their principal source of support over an extended time is not selling labor, then they aren’t, as a matter of economic class, “working class”.)
Just as someone isn’t part of the capitalist class if over time they do get most of their support from working and don’t have capital holdings. Economic class is a description of how you relate to the economy.
> It is delusional to think our jobs are on the same level as someone who grafts all day with their hands and does back breaking work for minimum wage.
The proletarian class isn’t defined by the nature of labor, but by the fact of selling it as one’s overwhelming-majority means of support within the economy. Yes, there are important differences within the class as well as the broad common features and interests.
This phrase would include any non-owner professional like lawyers or doctors or even upper management.
On top of that many tech workers don’t fit even your definition because equity is often an important part of comp. That’s not the case for lawyers or doctors or management in other industries.
Using standard and customary vernacular, tech workers are not “working class.”
I mean, you’ve left out the petit bourgeoisie entirely, describing only the proletariat and haut bourgeoisie. Its true that some tech workers are in the proletariat (part of the proletarian intelligentsia) but a whole lot of tech workers are petit bourgeois, having a mixed reliance on capital and labor (not, for tech workers as such, the classical pattern of applying their own labor to their own capital, but that’s not the only pattern of mixed reliance that puts people in the middle class that sits between the working class and pure capitalists.)
Eh, compared to my relatives in the trades, construction, retail and warehouse work, and the jobs I had in high school, I'm on easy street here.
Negligible risk of trips or falls, no lifting anything heavy, no working around powerful machines or using dangerous tools, no dealing with chemicals, no need for hard hats or safety boots, no working in hot or cold or wet conditions, no working with knives, no splattering hot oil, no working in the dark, no loud noise, no working near moving vehicles, no standing on your feet 8 hours a day, no boss that gets mad if you're off sick, no mandatory overtime, very low stress.
The only thing that makes tech work more dangerous than sitting on my ass on the sofa is the office's free chocolate.