Top: The job of maintaining equipment at the Nostrand Avenue subway substation in Brooklyn is a hard one, but comes with job security and dream benefits that would make even Bernie smile. MTA union jobs typically provide full health insurance including dental and vision through retirement.
Below: Operating a rural sawmill brings control over work life and freedom from bosses, but America’s self-employed must figure out their own often inadequate health insurance and retirement schemes. And working with tremendously heavy logs and great spinning saws is hard on the body and dangerous. Serious illness or injury can mean catastrophic, bankrupting costs.
NOTE: Yesterday’s Opposable on chickens had pity for the birds and outrage at corporate overlords, but ignored the people who actually do the hard, dirty, dangerous labor of the raising and killing. This week will be all about a wide range of workers.
And the connection between men and machines is so interesting, because men, as opposed to women, do seem to go for machines. I'm thinking of all those little boys who seem to be born with a love of trucks. Trucks, trains, anything with an engine or a scooper.
Interesting why men go for machines. My brother had an erector set. No pun intended. I was never allowed to play w/it. Also health insurance in America is a shame. I wonder how many women work for MTA