Teachers, Cops, Wages, Children, and Silly Metaphors: Gender & Ethnic Equity in Work
By Michael Monasky | June 7, 2017 | When I mentioned that I would be attending a community meeting about gender and ethnic equi...
https://www.elkgrovenews.net/2017/06/teachers-cops-wages-children-and-silly.html
By Michael Monasky | June 7, 2017 |
When I mentioned that I would
be attending a community meeting about gender and ethnic equity in Elk Grove's
public employment sector, a couple of retired school teachers weighed in. Most
school teachers are women; most cops are men. Yet, a school teacher cannot work
without multiple years of education, at least a bachelor's degree with
additional academic credentials. Cops are only required to attend a few weeks
or months of an "academy." The same is true of firefighters...who are
mostly male.
The Dun & Bradstreet
employment figures for Elk Grove, cited for the city council last year,
emphasized two primary areas of job growth. One is retail sales and restaurant
work, both of which are based upon minimum wages. The other is single
proprietor/single employee companies. Both represent the growing class of
workers know as "the precariat."
Equal employment expert Don
Jeffries suggested that the public sector analysis be expanded to private
employment in Elk Grove. I agree; included in my platform, on which I ran for
mayor last fall, was a $15/hour minimum wage in a city that could actually
afford it. Job
justice will never happen without wage justice. No one who works should be
poor.
I disagree that
"children" should not be included in this discussion about work.
Fourteen year olds are mature enough to enter conversations and debates about,
among other things, making a living. They'll be expected to do so in four years
anyway.
I was 14 years old, a
sophomore in high school, when I competitively debated this national topic in
1966-1967 with many other kids my age: Resolved:
That the foreign aid program of the United States should be limited to
non-military assistance.
More than half a century later, the United States as hegemon spends more on
military exploits and "national security" endeavors than the rest of
the world...combined. No wonder we have no money remaining for domestic
social programs...for instance, universal health care, which would make jobs
affordable for people and businesses in the first place.
There's no nice way to put
this: unwillingness to expand and open the debate about work, community
development, and the inequity issues we face, to the rest of the community is
an errant path of governance. Council member Patrick Hume described a
metaphorical funnel through which the process would stream, an ersatz political
sausage. Elaborating his realpolitik, it was ironic inasmuch as it accurately
described the alienating, penurious, infundibular results he seeks to achieve.
Rejection, by this council and its citizens, of monthly, public district
assemblies as a forum for conversation and debate for this and other topics,
demonstrates recreant failure.
Deep courage and great effort
are required to include everyone in, to make transparent and available, the
process of writing, interpreting, and enforcing laws and policies for the
common good.
At this point in time, that's a process I happen to trust more to our absentee
fourteen year olds than all of the "adults" in attendance at Tuesday
night's meeting. Especially suspect are "the smartest guys in the
room"; remember Enron?
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