To: Andrewksu
Interesting post -- I'd take the Colonel out of the equation, since military personnel tend not to keep score with money.
However, viewed another way -- I'd say that the guy driving the forklift belongs to a union that has fought to increase his salary to maintain a standard of living. All the other middleclass jobs have fallen behind.
547 posted on
01/03/2006 11:03:17 AM PST by
durasell
(!)
To: durasell
Architect would probably not be considered standard middle class, as it is professional practice. The chief principal at a decent sized firm in Chicago(35-40 designers/architects) I know makes about $110k. That is the pinnacle of a 40 year career as a highly educated professional.
I would say that a salary of $75-100k is, depending on location, a very healthy upper middle class salary. Just a shot in the dark, but I would estimate that a dude working on the assembly line for about 10 years would be worth 40-50k.
I was watching a show about one of Ford's manufacturing plants where the Unions had fought mechanizing process at every step. Ford had to compromise and created robotic arms that would essentially place the dash or objects into the vehicle with the operator doing nothing more than following. If Ford had it's druthers, it could mechanize these processes completely, reducing labor and liability costs, which could keep them competitive with foreign companies.
So, simply restated, Unions are causing many of our labor/competition problems.
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