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In Europe and Australia, all those jobs get done and the people doing them get fairly compensated for it. For example, the pay for a garbage truck driver is ac

In Europe and Australia, all those jobs get done and the people doing them get fairly compensated for it. For example, the pay for a garbage truck driver is actually quite high, because it's an unpleasant job and they need to attract people to do it. And because the salary is high, it's also heavily automated, with pickers that grab bins and empty them into the truck. Meanwhile, in Southeast Asia, the same job is done by three people, two of whom jog outside next to the vehicle in the sweltering heat and manually empty the bins into it. They're breaking their backs and get paid like crap.

umvi 6y ago
> And because the salary is high, it's also heavily automated That isn't really obvious to me as having a cause/effect relationship. Could you please expound? Why would high salaries cause heavy automation in a given field?
- hawkice 6y ago
  Automation reduces costs, which are proportional to salaries in most service industries.
  - rumanator 6y ago
    Automation only reduces cost if wages are already sufficiently high so that the cost of initial investment and maintenance is economically justified in the mid/long term. The reason you see trash pickets riding robotic trash collectors in rich western countries is simple: it's far cheaper to buy and maintain a robot than it is to pay the salaries of enough people to achieve the same goal. You don't get robotic trash collectors in southeast Asia and Africa and South America because for the price of a single robotic trash collectors you can pay the salary of a bunch of people for a few years. Hence, you get people carting wheelie bins.
icelancer 6y ago
>> In Europe and Australia, all those jobs get done and the people doing them get fairly compensated for it. For example, the pay for a garbage truck driver is actually quite high, because it's an unpleasant job and they need to attract people to do it. And because the salary is high, it's also heavily automated, with pickers that grab bins and empty them into the truck. This is true in America as well, FYI. It's a large source of union jobs.
- selimthegrim 6y ago
  Well in New Orleans right now they’re using prisoners to break a strike. And they do ride/run behind the truck.
  - malkuth23 6y ago
    They actually stopped using prisoners, but are still only paying $10.25 an hour and work one of the hardest jobs I can imagine. They are basically not allowed to use the lift on the truck because it slows them down, so they hand lift my cans every time in the 95 degree heat.
    - selimthegrim 6y ago
      I do hear them (here in lower nine) use the lift sometimes.
malkuth23 6y ago
In Southeast Asia? Try New Orleans, Louisiana where sanitation workers have been striking to make $15 (they currently make $10.25 with no benefits) and jog along side the truck and empty the cans by hand.
runarberg 6y ago
> In Europe and Australia, all those jobs get done and the people doing them get fairly compensated for it. Having worked in the service industry in wealthy Iceland for years, I can’t say I agree with this statement. While working exusting 12 hour shifts with mandatory minimum pay (sometime a little less because of exploitative unpaid overtime), the owner of the business was regularly found to be the highest payed person in the country. In other words, my work, contributed to some rich guy getting richer, while my compensation was only as little as he was allowed to pay me. That doesn’t seem fair does it. Ask any working class person, in europe and I’m sure they have a similar story.
- 9nGQluzmnq3M 6y ago
  Fairness is relative. In Iceland, that minimum wage guarantees that you can live in some comfort. In the US, you can work in a similar job with similar hours, but your shifts are often completely unpredictable (and intentionally kept below 35 hrs/week to avoid paying benefits), you can be fired at any time, and a single unexpected expense like a health problem can see you reduced to homelessness.
- esperent 6y ago
  I live in Vietnam and get to see the rubbish truck go past my house every day exactly as the person above you described. It's summer time here, 35-40 degrees and high humidity every day. One person drives the truck, the other two go through people bins and sort their rubbish, extracting the recycling since nobody here has the habit of separating their waste. I don't know the exact wage of these guys, but judging from other government jobs it's probably around 3 million VND/month (~$130), slightly less than $1600 a year, and it's likely they work 6 days a week. Food and rent is cheap here, but not that cheap. You can barely survive on that wage, especially if you have a family. You will be eating mostly rice and probably scrounging for other work on the grey market. In Iceland, you'll get at least minimum wage, $2500 a month, ~$30,000 a year. Of course, the economies are different. However, using PPP (purchasing power parity) [1], Iceland minimum wage would be equivalent to around $13,000 a year in Vietnam, or 8 times a garbage collector's pay here, for significantly easier work and less hours. I'm not trying to say that you had it easy, or that it was OK to pay you that amount for such long shifts and to stiff you on overtime. However, by objective comparison people working equivalent jobs in developing countries have it much, much, worse. [1] https://partnersontheroad.com/salary-comparison-city-country-calculator/ https://partnersontheroad.com/salary-comparison-city-country...

umvi 6y ago

> And because the salary is high, it's also heavily automated That isn't really obvious to me as having a cause/effect relationship. Could you please expound? Why would high salaries cause heavy automation in a given field?

hawkice 6y ago
Automation reduces costs, which are proportional to salaries in most service industries.
- rumanator 6y ago
  Automation only reduces cost if wages are already sufficiently high so that the cost of initial investment and maintenance is economically justified in the mid/long term. The reason you see trash pickets riding robotic trash collectors in rich western countries is simple: it's far cheaper to buy and maintain a robot than it is to pay the salaries of enough people to achieve the same goal. You don't get robotic trash collectors in southeast Asia and Africa and South America because for the price of a single robotic trash collectors you can pay the salary of a bunch of people for a few years. Hence, you get people carting wheelie bins.

icelancer 6y ago

>> In Europe and Australia, all those jobs get done and the people doing them get fairly compensated for it. For example, the pay for a garbage truck driver is actually quite high, because it's an unpleasant job and they need to attract people to do it. And because the salary is high, it's also heavily automated, with pickers that grab bins and empty them into the truck. This is true in America as well, FYI. It's a large source of union jobs.

selimthegrim 6y ago
Well in New Orleans right now they’re using prisoners to break a strike. And they do ride/run behind the truck.
- malkuth23 6y ago
  They actually stopped using prisoners, but are still only paying $10.25 an hour and work one of the hardest jobs I can imagine. They are basically not allowed to use the lift on the truck because it slows them down, so they hand lift my cans every time in the 95 degree heat.
  - selimthegrim 6y ago
    I do hear them (here in lower nine) use the lift sometimes.

malkuth23 6y ago

In Southeast Asia? Try New Orleans, Louisiana where sanitation workers have been striking to make $15 (they currently make $10.25 with no benefits) and jog along side the truck and empty the cans by hand.

runarberg 6y ago

> In Europe and Australia, all those jobs get done and the people doing them get fairly compensated for it. Having worked in the service industry in wealthy Iceland for years, I can’t say I agree with this statement. While working exusting 12 hour shifts with mandatory minimum pay (sometime a little less because of exploitative unpaid overtime), the owner of the business was regularly found to be the highest payed person in the country. In other words, my work, contributed to some rich guy getting richer, while my compensation was only as little as he was allowed to pay me. That doesn’t seem fair does it. Ask any working class person, in europe and I’m sure they have a similar story.

9nGQluzmnq3M 6y ago
Fairness is relative. In Iceland, that minimum wage guarantees that you can live in some comfort. In the US, you can work in a similar job with similar hours, but your shifts are often completely unpredictable (and intentionally kept below 35 hrs/week to avoid paying benefits), you can be fired at any time, and a single unexpected expense like a health problem can see you reduced to homelessness.
esperent 6y ago
I live in Vietnam and get to see the rubbish truck go past my house every day exactly as the person above you described. It's summer time here, 35-40 degrees and high humidity every day. One person drives the truck, the other two go through people bins and sort their rubbish, extracting the recycling since nobody here has the habit of separating their waste. I don't know the exact wage of these guys, but judging from other government jobs it's probably around 3 million VND/month (~$130), slightly less than $1600 a year, and it's likely they work 6 days a week. Food and rent is cheap here, but not that cheap. You can barely survive on that wage, especially if you have a family. You will be eating mostly rice and probably scrounging for other work on the grey market. In Iceland, you'll get at least minimum wage, $2500 a month, ~$30,000 a year. Of course, the economies are different. However, using PPP (purchasing power parity) [1], Iceland minimum wage would be equivalent to around $13,000 a year in Vietnam, or 8 times a garbage collector's pay here, for significantly easier work and less hours. I'm not trying to say that you had it easy, or that it was OK to pay you that amount for such long shifts and to stiff you on overtime. However, by objective comparison people working equivalent jobs in developing countries have it much, much, worse. [1] https://partnersontheroad.com/salary-comparison-city-country-calculator/ https://partnersontheroad.com/salary-comparison-city-country...