> I said nothing about the workers -- I'm sure they're great hardworking
>guys.
You had written: "Once again, unions famous for racial and gender and every other kind of discrimination expect everyone to rally to their side when life gets tough. You practically have to be born into a union family to get into the Hollywood crafts unions -- those jobs are handed down from father to son like vintage cars!"
That's about the workers. And below, when you ask why you can't pass your job down to your daughter, that's about more than just the union too. (I detect something else, perhaps jealousy: you can't hand your job down because it requires skills your daughter may not have; those unskilled, and possibly lazy, blue-collar workers, however, can pass their job down to anyone.)
>>We generally earn less per hour than the same
>> trade in other industries, and our working conditions are among the
>> worst in the world.
>
> this strikes me as most unlikely. the world is a pretty big place.
I think it was obvious to the attentive reader that he was engaging in hyperbole; it's a nice device, one that gets people's attention, but the writer has to have faith in the audience to not misinterpret it. But you really don't know what his working conditions are like, do you? If anything, his description of work on a movie set was understated. It truly is grueling, relentless work, punctuated by long stretches of unbearable tedium. I worked on one for less than a month, and I consider myself capable of just about any kind of work, but I was completely exhausted--from sixteen-hour days and lugging really heavy equipment through mud and water and rain and 100-degree heat--at the end of that time, so much so that my "real" "life" literally stopped.
>I'll bet he wouldn't trade places with a file clerk, a waiter in a
>chinese restaurant, an office cleaner or a daycare worker or a
>supermarket bagger-- not to mention a Pakistani carpet weaver, a thai
>sex worker or a MexicanMaquilardora worker.
That's a non-sequiter. Of course he wouldn't, but so what? That's like me saying, I bet you wouldn't trade places with Christopher Caldwell. Sorta sounds like a sandbox taunt: petty and irrelevant.
>> I don't know what our demographic figures are.
>
> why not find out? That's what my comment was about.
You made the original (unfounded) accusations. Seems like it's on you to find out.
>>Less than 5% of our
>> electricians are women. We wish there were more,
>
> Sure... how hard have they tried to recruit some?
Why the automatic (unfounded) scepticism? Do you *know* that they haven't tried to recruit more women? I'm assuming not, since you haven't stated anything like a fact.
>> Our members come from all over the US and the
>> world. We have many Latinos and Asians, not so many African
>> Americans.
>
> and why not? Are they also too weak?
That's just snide. Not to mention an (unfounded) implication of racism.
>>I hope this helps in clearing up anti-worker stereotypes about the
>> Hollywood working class.
>> An honest answer from a movie electrician,
>
> Hot air, mostly irrelevant, and tacitly conceding my basic point.
Not at all. I thought it was a rather direct, impassioned reply to some rather egregious (unfounded) statements. What was your point again?
Eric