Makes me think about the role education plays in labor organization.
Specifically, in the sense of how labor views itself in general, and how one sector of laborers views another.
Education stratification may be a source of division in labor. Service industry workers potentially holding fewer credentials than educators who hold fewer credentials than medical workers and other professionals. Credentials playing a dividing role by creating divisions between these groups (Makes me think about the meme about how EMTs - who make 15 an hours - would be outraged to learn that fast food workers earned as much as them, and so, the fast food workers shouldn't ask for that). To me this seems like a key barrier to organization across these sectors. Those with more education feeling entitled to more pay, entitled to status hierarchy. They sacrificed present goods/consumption for more education and later goods/consumption, and so, to reduce differences between those with education and those without is an affront to this explanation of people's lives. I don't think this is the ONLY way people think about their education, but it is a way. Organizing against this educationally produced division might be helpful.
I have often wondered if after the 2007 crisis, a sufficient number of people with higher education degrees ended up doing work in jobs that didn't need those degrees, and whether this group of people learned to value the work and became radicalized through this? These experiences building the foundation for cross-educational solidarity and a foundation for some of the socialist/left organizing in the past few years?
Great piece!
Makes me think about the role education plays in labor organization.
Specifically, in the sense of how labor views itself in general, and how one sector of laborers views another.
Education stratification may be a source of division in labor. Service industry workers potentially holding fewer credentials than educators who hold fewer credentials than medical workers and other professionals. Credentials playing a dividing role by creating divisions between these groups (Makes me think about the meme about how EMTs - who make 15 an hours - would be outraged to learn that fast food workers earned as much as them, and so, the fast food workers shouldn't ask for that). To me this seems like a key barrier to organization across these sectors. Those with more education feeling entitled to more pay, entitled to status hierarchy. They sacrificed present goods/consumption for more education and later goods/consumption, and so, to reduce differences between those with education and those without is an affront to this explanation of people's lives. I don't think this is the ONLY way people think about their education, but it is a way. Organizing against this educationally produced division might be helpful.
I have often wondered if after the 2007 crisis, a sufficient number of people with higher education degrees ended up doing work in jobs that didn't need those degrees, and whether this group of people learned to value the work and became radicalized through this? These experiences building the foundation for cross-educational solidarity and a foundation for some of the socialist/left organizing in the past few years?