HRC would have been a great president...but she's never going to run again.

[xajj4791]

152. Trades

The issue is that learning trades is not sufficient if the unions are powerless to protect jobs and make them middle class jobs instead of outsourced minimum wage jobs that no one can live off of especially with children. Union busting has been the business since Reagan turned on the unions that got him elected the first time. The Democratic Party "should" be backing unions 1000%.

Once the union is propped back up and put in a position of being truly an equal for any corporation, then we can look at creating more trade jobs. Great examples are nurses and computer technicians. Both of those skill sets are in high demand, but, more and more jobs in both fields are being contracted out to companies who then pay out the least possible to hire warm bodies. This process is debilitating the middle class and must be stopped.

A great example of what I mean is school bus drivers. When I was growing up, being a school bus driver was a great job that paid well and had full benefits. As school districts contracted out for bus drivers, the drivers were being paid minimum wage and the contract carriers would not perform sufficient background investigations so you end up with pedophile bus drivers, drunk bus drivers, etc. The school board claims not their fault because it is contracted out, the contract carrier performs their internal review and moves on with no recourse to parents whose children were placed in harms way because the contract forces any complaints to be adjudicated instead of permitting any lawsuits. This practice hurts the students, hurts the parents, hurts the people who would be good quality bus drivers earning decent wages and benefits. It helps the contractor and the school board though as they each save/make money and minimize risk.

The same thing is happening to prison guards, school teachers, universities, security guards, and many other professions. Take a look at any impartial review of the prisons that use contracted out guards. Unfortunately, I see this practice spreading as the Republicans push for privatized public schools, police forces, anywhere really that the government is spending money.