Comments by "Mat Broomfield" (@matbroomfield) on "TikToker NAILS Why ALL Labour Is Skilled Labour" video.

Absolute nonsense Jackson and Tom. A skill is something that requires considerable training to do, and which any other fit, person capable of following directions could not immediately step in and do instead. Both he and you are confusing "labour" for "skilled labour." The fact that I do not want to do a task, or find it more valuable to pay someone else to do it does not make it skilled. I could replace a store clerk with 10 minutes of training, a waitress with a couple of hours, a hole digger with zero training.
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@RougaRouKJun Landscapers are skilled labourers. THEY get to set their price. Landscape LABOURERS (diggers) are not skilled, and consequently receive a low wage comparable to dishwashers. The minimum wage is supposed to provide everyone a livable wage in line with the cost of living, and America is the only first world nation that does not have nationwide minimum wage. In most countries, that wage is linked to inflation and cost of living. SKILLED labourers have greater value in the market, and as employers discovered after covid, if you treat your employees like crap, you have trouble holding onto them.
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@Terrackhimself Hole digging is absolutely not a skill. I could put a shovel in the hands of a child on the beach and get them doing it instantly. I could get them doing it safely in 15 minutes. The fact that it requires physical conditioning to do so is merely being healthy enough to do the job. I could make the same argument for a surgeon who may be on his feet for 24 hours. At no point did I suggest that skill exists purely in the mind, although the capacity to do a physical task competently certainly does.
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@iamcosma7065 I said nothing about how good they are at it. You can have someone who spent 30 years learning to be a brain surgeon and they are still shit at the job. That does not mean that they would not be considered a skilled labour. What you just did is known as an "equivocation fallacy" - that is, you took one meaning of the word "skill" that I was using, which meant "A developed talent or ability" then you applied a different definition "Proficiency, facility, or dexterity that is acquired or developed through training or experience." Obviously, somebody who is more attentively experience at their job will be better than someone who is not - even someone in an unskilled menial job.
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@Terrackhimself You've only made one other post on the subject, so how can it be for the third time? But you can repeat your same point 9000 times - unless you make an actual persuasive argument FOR YOUR POSITION not a flat unsubstantiated assertion, it will accomplish nothing. A task that can be achieved by a person with less than an hour of training is not skilled. You are trying to imply that my agreement that a skill need not be purely mental, and my claim that hole digging is not skilled labour are inconcongruous - they are not. Given the correct tool, with almost no training, any sufficiently healthy person could be digging holes within minutes. It's not the fact that it is PHYSICAL labour, or non mental labour that makes it unskilled - it's the fact that it requires no especial expertise, talent, or training to accomplish. I could take that same labourer to an oil rig and they'd kill themselves in a week because physical though the labour is, it also requires training and competence.
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@iamcosma7065 "Those are not two definitions of skill " Take it up with the dictionary.
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@Terrackhimself @Eric H You haven't made a reasonable argument. You have ASSERTED that hole digging is a skill and I have discarded your assertion. Hole digging requires only the fitness to do it and the ability to move a shovel in a purposeful manner. Don't blame me if you make feeble unsupported arguments. Your argument is as good as your ability to follow threads in a conversation with just three participants. As for your cnc experience, so what? It was a technical machine, but clearly did not require skilled labour to operate it at it most basic function. In fact, I would suggest that it was designed SPECIFICALLY so that it could be operated by no-skill 18-year olds. Now let's see you program it. Let's see you fix it when any kind of problem arises. YOU were not the skilled worker, you were just the monkey pushing the buttons but you're too ignorant of how complicated it was to realise that. As for caps, again, you are too ignorant to recognise context. It's quite apparent that you are not up to a nuanced conversation so I won't waste any more time on you. You're dismmissed - you can return to your buttons monkey.
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@iamcosma7065 Keep on trying, but you know damned well if a Michelin chef presented you a 2k bill for 2 hours labour regardless of the food, and a mcdonalds worker presented you the same bill for the same amount of work, you'd feel a lot more overcharged with one than the other.
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Precisely right. This was the silliest video Jackson has ever made.
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@Terrackhimself The value someone has to to society and their level of skill are completely unreleated. I have ALWAYS valued garbage collectors, wait staff, and store clerks, but none of them is skilled. They could be replaced on a day's notice with almost no decrease in service (don't confuse efficiency with skill). I would say that the value of most marketing directors is almost zero, but their skill is considerable. "Sounds skilled to me." That's because your thinking is wooly and muddled and you are incorrectly conflating unrelated concepts. Value and skill are not even on the same measuring scale - it's like conflating the popularity of a car and its fuel economy.
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@XtomJamesExtra I stand corrected Kris, but I agree $7.25 is utterly pitiful.
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@iamcosma7065 There is a justifiable correlation between the amount of time, intelligence and money it requires to acquire a skill, and the salary that skill commands. That's why surgeons earn six figures, and cashiers are at the opposite end of the spectrum. I'm not saying a cashier has no value as a person, but when the shit hits the fan, I'm turning to doctors, engineers and scientists. That said, investors and politiicians can take a hike.
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Massively overgeneralise why don't you?
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"labour" not "skilled labour."
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@Terrackhimself It's absolutely not a skill. ANY human being, no matter how poorly educated or lazy, can do hard physical labour. It takes about a month to condition your body sufficiently. Fitness to do a job versus the manual/technical/mental training are two totally different things. Take you for example; like a chimp smashing the keys, you can clearly operate a keyboard, but you lack the intellectual capacity to formulate a decent argument. That's labour versus skill. People sitting at desks have different health issues; stress, backpain, heart disease, and obesity to name but a handful. As for how much Carlo's labour is valued, that's a different argument. Any person putting in a 40 hour week deserves to earn a living wage.
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