Not specifically USA answer, just some general thoughts that could probably work anywhere:
- A generous safety net, maybe UBI, so anyone can take as much time off as they need to requalify for a trade
- Very cheap (but not free) training
- Easy path to education and training, there shouldn’t be too many hurdles between “i’d like to do that” and “i’m officially an apprentice”
- Enforcement of health&safety regulations - trade jobs often have lower life expectancy for being physically hard
- Ensured healthcare and retirement
- Paid maternity leave for self-employed
- General support for unions, while pushing back on some of the excesses (like limit on the number of members)
- Edit: Simple taxation. Not necessarily low taxes, just make them simple to calculate and pay. Tradespeople don’t have an accounting department.
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Regulate the % of the work force to limit foreign visa workers. As long as American companies can opt to hire visa workers for less pay and benefits, American workers will be at a disadvantage. Especially if it’s easy to order an immigration raid once workers begin trying to unionize or negotiate for better working conditions or salary
Maybe we should just give visa workers more protections?
It seems like their intentionally kept in a state of precarity by our immigration laws.
“Making” anyone do anything they aren’t interested in sounds like a bad idea to me.
yeah I wouldn’t “make” people do stuff…
Higher pay.
Stop with the relentless “Everyone should go to college “ BS
Yes, historically college graduates make more over their lifetime; but if everyone has a college degree, and or every job requires a degree, especially when it really doesn’t need to; you devalue a degree.
I’d push for a CCC for the trades. You’re likely to have to leave home, but we’ll hire you for …2-3 years and train you. No debt, you’ll get paid the whole time, and when you’re done you’ll be good to go
We’ve spent the last few hundred years deciding which people are better than others, and then go surprised Pikachu when nobody wants to do the jobs that we’ve dubbed “inferior”.
Universal healthcare and supporting trade unionization expansion.
You know what I think about sometimes is how it’s so weird that in America it’s the duty of our employers to provide health insurance, meaning it’s a cost to the business. Universal healthcare would free up shitloads of capital and have a huge impact on small businesses’ staying power.
I’m convinced that health insurance companies continually lobby Congress to prevent any gor of universal healthcare so that they can continue to leech off the American public. Hell, tax filing companies have already been doing just that for decades.
Absolutely would
Civil Construction programs.
Basically military-like program for infrastructure. Sign up for 4 years, we’ll train you in an in demand trade, put you through the apprenticeship and pay you the whole time. Then send you to build infrastructure and work in construction around the country. Any out of region jobs would include housing.
Cities, counties, states, and federal government would be required that x% of all government construction projects are to be done by this civilian construction program.
I would inform public universities that I would pull/reduce funding unless they start trade training programs. There would also be a media campaign to talk about trade jobs, and reduce the “uneducated blue collar worker” stigma around honest skilled work.
I’d also support, or at least not undercut, unions and tax billionaires.
no one should be made to work. they should be incentivized and the opportunities should be easily accessible.
How so?
good pay, nice benefits, ample opportunity. same as any other jobs.
Free training and increase the minimum wage while tying it to inflation.
Skilled trades are generally union, the training is free through a union. If you go to a trade school or college, there are scholarships and sponsorships.
In my area electricians and plumbers apprentices make around $20/hr with raises every 6 months.
only reason i haven’t applied to apprenticeships is they still drug test in my area. in a state where marijuana is recreationally legal.
You may want to check their policy. In my state weed is legal and the electricians union drug tests but they don’t care if weed is detected. I don’t know about other unions, but I imagine they are similar.
If you are high all the time, don’t waste anybody’s time applying. If you are an occasional smoker or relax after a hard day, then you will be fine. They don’t hand out jobs paying $55/hr to just anybody, you need to be on-time or early and prove you deserve a place in the union, so showing up high one time can torpedo that career real fast.
i really only use it for pain/anxiety after my shift. i currently have a union job in a school district, so i am in an okay place but i could do better in a trade. i might try to find out how strict these drug policies are (current job doesn’t bother testing). thanks for your input!
Call around, not just one local. Sometimes one will care but the other won’t even thought they are in the same field.
Easy.
Build public infrastructure. Lots and lots of public infrastructure.
Healthcare.
education, money, AND RETIREMENT FUNDING
mofos
Unions. If my kid who is choosing between college and electrician had a strong electrical workers union to go to to start, it would make a huge difference to that decision.
If those jobs came with a guaranteed pension after 20 years of destroying your body, people would be lining up for them. $24/hour is okay for getting by-day-to-day as a single young person but you can’t raise kids, build wealth, buy a house, or have a future outside of getting up tomorrow morning.
