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Once can be very sympathetic to the experiences of Amazon drivers — and to be clear, the peeing-in-a-bottle story does appear to refer to a real incident — whil
by edouard-harris 5y ago
Once can be very sympathetic to the experiences of Amazon drivers — and to be clear, the peeing-in-a-bottle story does appear to refer to a real incident — while still recognizing the enormous improvements in the working conditions of the average blue collar laborer.
It's sometimes a bit too easy to look at the past through sepia-colored lenses, and assume that the present must be worse. As an antidote to that tendency, it's worth reading this description of the actual reality of working in one of Andrew Carnegie's steel mills at the turn of the 20th century:
> Indeed, flames, noise, and danger ruled the Carnegie mills. "Protective gear" consisted only of two layers of wool long-johns; horrible injuries were common. Wives and children came to dread the sound of factory whistles that meant an accident had occurred.
> "They wipe a man out here every little while," a worker said in 1893. "Sometimes a chain breaks, and a ladle tips over, and the iron explodes.... Sometimes the slag falls on the workmen.... Of course, if everything is working all smooth and a man watches out, why, all right! But you take it after they've been on duty twelve hours without sleep, and running like hell, everybody tired and loggy, and it's a different story."
(Source: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/carnegie-steel-business/ https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/carnegi...)
I've worked blue collar jobs and I've worked white collar jobs, and I'd take Bezos over Carnegie any day. And the very fact that sounds like such faint praise highlights how far we've come.
- retrac 5y agoTrue. I certainly agree with your example of 1890. And for 1940 and maybe 1970. But it does seems at least conceivable that workers may have been more safe in say 1985 than today. Also, aside from risk in objective terms, which was surely a consequence of technology and level of material wealth available to some degree -- how seriously did the society and culture generally take the issue?
- jonas21 5y agoLuckily, we don't have to guess based on what is conceivable. The US government keeps statistics on this. Even since 1985, the rate of both workplace injuries [1] and fatalities [2] have fallen significantly. (the fatality graph doesn't go all the way back to 1985, but if you look at the source data they cite, the trend continues) [1] https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/topics/surveillance/images/laborforcedata/chart1.jpg https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/topics/surveillance/images/laborfo... [2] https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/topics/surveillance/images/laborforcedata/Chart16.jpg https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/topics/surveillance/images/laborfo...
- retrac 5y agoAmericans don't work industrial jobs anymore. All the steel mill maimings are happening in China. What's the rate within a specific profession? Has it stayed constant for e.g. electrical line repair workers? (Not just trying to deflect here, sorry. I should have anticipated your point there. I was aware of the trend you speak of.)
- retrac 5y agoTo answer my own question: I pieced together a partial picture from scattered data for fatalities and serious injuries in electrical utility workers from the late 80s onward for Ireland, UK and USA. It seems to have got a bit better through the early 2000s and is maybe flat recently. In any case not worse than the 80s as I conjectured carelessly, though not sharply better either.