price of salary should operation with supply and demand, just like anything else. If theres low supply of workers willing to do cleaning, then the salary will need to increase to entice ppl to do the work. Sometimes it does need higher salary, but it should not be set in stone.
The janitor will probably get a pension too. Most college professionals have to fund their own retirement.
It's a very good question that also came up over the past few days in the context of a report that lifeguards in Newport Beach, CA make $125,000/yr, with some making >$200,000/yr.
I use the Olympic gold medal as an example. Why would anyone get up a 5am every morning to train, and put in years working 7 days a week to perfect their skills, if everyone who wanted to participate was given a gold medal?
The janitor is probably doing more good work than many college professors and lawyers.
Just sayin
“Why would anyone go to college or risk starting a business when they can live comfortably on 50K a year mopping floors?”
i don’t want to mop the floor, and i want more than 50k.....
but if i don’t have my current job... maybe...
BWAAAHAAHAAAAA! Right.
“Conservatives and Tea Partiers’ anti-union public policies do not have the end goal of breaking up unions but of correcting some of the problems that have resulted from union overreach.”
Speak for yourself, pal. I see NO REASON at all for allowing unions to spend one more day in existence - and that applies to both public and private sector unions. If you HATE your boss, then take your skills elsewhere. Every white-collar person understands that - so what’s so hard about workers understanding it too?
As for the “good things” that unions have brought in the past...like safer workplaces - they are enshrined by law and punishable by jail and lawsuits (when the law isn’t followed). That applies to union shops and it applies to non-union shops. Unions simply have no relevance there.
I don’t get people who have leftists friends.
What a bunch of pikers! In the Louisville, KY school district, we pay our janitors in excess of $100K a year (Bus mechanics and school librarians too).
In 1980 as a new engineer, I went to work for a paper company in a pulp plant. Salary was $26,500/year. The unionized plant workers’ lowest paying job was $17/hr. That was for the idiots who did nothing all day long but sweep up wood chips with a push broom.
Unions by always pushing for higher wages without any necessary improvement in worker productivity or efficiency eventually kills the business. Look at US automakers as a perfect example where union wages have long outstripped the value created by their workers or the ability of the company to pass these added costs on to consumers.
In public organizations where there is no bottom line or tangible value for the services provided, unions have pushed so that public employees are often paid many times what a comparable private worker would be paid doing the same job. Hence janitors are making $50,000 per year. This is the problem that is now pushing states and local governments to bankruptcy as taxpayers have reached the limit of what they can pay.
Pfft. That’s nothing. Lifeguards in California can make up to $210,000 a year. And this isn’t administration of lifeguards. This is lifeguards who are not summer help, who paint things, stock shelves, etc.
I am not kidding.
So, a $50,000 custodian doesn’t surprise me.
This is Marxism, pure and simple. Liberals are not upset that a custodian is paid $50K a year plus full benefits.
Tot them, he NEEDS it. (remember, their definition of NEED can be very flexible)
My grandfather was a custodian for the last several decades of his life. He worked hard, and took his job seriously. But the point is, nearly ANYONE without a physical infirmity can be a custodian.
If I didn’t have a job, I would be a custodian, and would take no shame it it, because what is important is how well you do the job you are paid to do. There is honor in doing an unpalatable or boring job well.
But not everyone can take a scalpel and cut open flesh. There has to be a mechanism to get people to do that, and the government deciding for young people “YOU will be a brain surgeon, and YOU will be an accountant, and YOU will be custodian” is a mechanism that leftists love, but will never, Never, NEVER produced goods and services that are affordable, available, and of good quality.
We have read that book. We know how it ends.
How about company executives whose salaries and automatic bonuses are tied to how well the company's stock does each year instead of over the long term? Is that really a good thing?
Fifty years ago a guy could graduate high school, get a good paying job, get married, buy a house and start a family by the time he was 21, with no college at all. Why can't he do that today? Sure, technology has made things more complicated and you need training, but that just shows that schools have not kept up with the times (liberal ideology, no doubt). Too many jobs "require" a college degree nowadays that really should not. Don't forget, every time unions get their members raises, executive salaries go up, too. And when there are layoffs, who do you think goes first, the union employee or some executive? It goes both ways.
College is not for everyone, neither is the boardroom; some people would rather work with their hands and not play office politics (and I've seen some people who did nothing but play office politics all day, every day). Why should they be paid any less?
My question is- do the janitors do more than clean? I admit I have always attended small schools, but the janitors I know about also do repairs. Many “janitors” have to be able to do plumbing, electrical, carpentry, A/C, heating, etc. I would bet many save the district money because they do not have to hire many different types of professionals to keep the buildings operational and safe. Our janitors had to also maintain the wooden gym floors, take care of the grass for the football field, and baseball diamond right along with all their other duties. They also were expected to be there during after school activities and games to make sure everything went smooth and cleanup afterward. The school janitors I know about are probably worth $50,000 but not sure they get that much anywhere I have lived.
I do think many in administration are overpaid- Superintendent, etc. they seem to hang out, drink coffee, and attend meetings. The school secretaries seem to do all the actual office work that keeps the school going... I never see the admin. guys doing much, but the janitor is always working.
the seals that took out bin laden...
they make $55k/yr
it’s all about the unions
Why not? They pay Human Resources bimbos with “Business Communications” degrees $50,000 but the janitor does more productive work.
Then there would be more jobs available for citizens that paid more, and greater progress could be made toward reduces the $950 billion paid annually for welfare and low wage subsidies. We pay for it one way or the other. Might as well have decent pay for low skilled work so people moved off welfare could become mostly self-supporting.