Are certain people paid too much?

By Brian Kreissl

There’s no question we’re losing a lot of well-paid middle class jobs in North America. Some even say we might be witnessing the beginning of a new “gilded age” — a time characterized by both fabulous wealth and grinding poverty, with relatively few people in between.

Several different phenomena are contributing to the hollowing out of the middle class, including the loss of well-paid manufacturing jobs, declining rates of unionization, automation, outsourcing, offshoring, austerity measures, high rates of unemployment and underemployment, changes in taxation rates, cuts to social programs, increased costs of education and anger over the pay of workers in the public sector and organizations that received government bailouts like those in the automotive industry.

This is all leading to stagnating middle class incomes, while the income of the top one per cent continues to increase, with more people joining the ranks of low income workers. Young people in particular seem to have a particularly difficult time securing meaningful work.

Resentment towards those better off

I don’t pretend to have all of the answers, nor am I immune from feeling somewhat resentful towards many of the people who seem to have so much more than I do in spite of the fact they don’t seem to deserve it. For example, I sometimes wonder why a bus driver, a miner or automotive assembly line worker should earn considerably more than someone like me.

It doesn’t feel right that someone can do all the “right” things in life — go to university, work hard, pursue continuing education, obtain graduate and professional education and get management experience — and still be earning considerably less than someone with little more than a high school education.

I’m not even talking about highly unusual situations like entertainers or professional athletes. In some cases, many people could do the jobs I’m talking about with a few weeks’ training at most.

Now I’m not using this blog as a forum to complain about my own situation (which is actually very good in many ways). Instead, I am just trying to illustrate a point.

If someone like me can feel the way I do, it’s easy to see why society has become so mean-spirited and has started engaging in a race to the bottom.

I’m not someone who is generally a snob about what people do for a living, nor am I unsympathetic towards the situation of blue collar or unionized workers. I know some people who work very hard in some of those jobs in conditions that are unpleasant, dirty and often downright dangerous.

But it’s easy to see why it can be hard for many people to empathize with others who seem to have so much more than they do. When you’re having a hard time paying your rent or putting food on the table, it’s hard to feel sorry for people who are losing their gold plated defined benefit pension plans or aren’t getting a raise when they’re already making $40 an hour for relatively unskilled work.

Remaining competitive and increasing productivity

It’s tough out there, and in an increasingly globalized economy we have to try to remain competitive. But I also think it’s important to be careful not to get caught up in the proverbial race to the bottom – or we’ll all end up losing out in the end.

Paying people $100,000 a year for unskilled work is probably not sustainable in the long-run (even if there is a certain amount of “danger pay” in some of those occupations). In most cases, those jobs are unionized, and the unions have to learn to be more reasonable in their demands because businesses, governments and the general public aren’t going to be very sympathetic in this climate.

But it’s interesting how there’s so much more anger over blue collar workers supposedly being overpaid than there is over the widening gulf between the pay of CEOs and that of the lowest paid workers in many organizations.

As I said, I don’t have all the answers. But, as I mentioned before, I believe our future prosperity may depend on increasing productivity and upskilling our unskilled and semi-skilled workers.

That’s probably much better than engaging in a race to the bottom. But, as a society, I also think we need to start examining what we pay people in certain white collar, managerial and professional roles in relation to well-paid blue collar jobs.

Brian Kreissl is the managing editor of Consult Carswell. He can be reached at [email protected]. For more information on Carswell's HR products visit www.carswell.com.