- https://politicalmusingsofkayleen.blogspot.com/2019/09/the-irresponsibility-of-consumers.html;
- https://politicalmusingsofkayleen.blogspot.com/2019/09/a-measure-of-ageism.html; and
- https://politicalmusingsofkayleen.blogspot.com/2019/09/changing-jobs-careers.html.
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The irresponsibility of consumers
The USA is particularly guilty of this, having actively resisted safety and health measures (e.g., cages on quad bikes used on farms) and thereby showing that (a) they want to dump 2nd rate materials here, and (b) they don't give a damn about people's lives and wellbeing so long as they can make a profit - a casualness about life that was shown also by their attitude on the Snowy Mountains scheme that it was "acceptable" to lose one life per mile of tunnelling . . . .
Everyday consumers risk being equally casual about the lives of workers in a number of ways, and their ineptness on such matters is one of the reasons (there are others as well, which basically boil down to the existence of evil people) we need modern slavery acts. The involvement of child slavery and conflict minerals in the manufacture of mobile phones has been known for years - through the actions of the media: the businesses involved seemed to focused on spruiking the "features" of this week's model. If consumers had been repeatedly asking the question "how much slavery or conflict minerals went into this phone?", they would have been told "we told don't know", but pressure would have built up and pushed those companies towards behaving responsibly and ethically - which they weren't then, although they've now got the message, years later than they could have, resulting in staggering amounts of avoidable human suffering and misery.
(As a side note to this, I've tried to get businesses which use mobile phones to ask this question, but they've basically not understood the power of public pressure [or have not wanted to get involved in creating problems for other businesses], and have shuffled out of that possibility - making them as equally guilty as any other consumer of aiding and abetting things like child abuse - even though they have - genuine [they are run by humans, many of whom have kids] and - policies against that. Also, these decisions are made by human beings, so they have as much FOMO as anyone else, but I'm very much aware that the measure of your commitment to integrity / ethics / morals is what you are prepared to go without.)
I get angry also about consumers' presumption of bad faith and laziness when it comes to local government services, which comes through in the way they complain about the cost of those services. Note that I consider it legitimate to question, challenge or even complain about such services, but don't attack people and methods you know nothing about, and don't do this in a way which leads to abuse of workers - which is exactly what has happened over the last few decades (although some shake up was needed).
However,the main point I want to end on here is consumers' irresponsibility and incompetence in purchasing or ordering (or building) houses.
A couple of years ago some colleagues were talking in the kitchen about whether to build a new or buy a house, and one said they didn't want to build a new house because of "all the decisions about colours and so on". I casually mentioned not to mention the decisions about insulation and the use of sustainable materials, to which the airy reply was "oh, I leave all that to the builder" - WHICH MEANS THE BUILDER CONSTRUCTS THE CHEAPEST THING THEY CAN GET AWAY WITH, and you can GUARANTEE that sustainability and ongoing costs won't be part of it.
That evasion of proper responsibility is why we have such rubbish houses in Australia. It is also why we need acts against modern slavery, international agreements on conflict minerals (it's not only diamonds), and lobby groups on things like the environment (political parties, to some extent, respond to voter pressure and to voter inaction/lack of pressure when seeking election, although thereafter policies [sold during the aforementioned elections in a way which depends on voters] will be more significant).
If consumers start recognising and responsibly exercising their power, we could improve this world fairly quickly.
That also requires consumers to be decent, informed and engaged people.
Anyone interested in improving the moral quality of their purchases?
PS - see also https://politicalmusingsofkayleen.blogspot.com/2019/06/lets-not-beat-around-bush.html
PPS - the problems with underpayment of workers in the food industry recently, and some years ago around questionable conduct in the Purana police task force can, to some extent, be sheeted back to consumers shopping for the cheapest food/drink or "best" deal without thinking what pressure that places on businesses and employees, and to simplistic, lacking in understanding (of law and consequence) and impatient demands from media and public for an end to the violence more or less "at any cost" - much along the lines of the gunboat diplomacy expectations of their government when Australians (or citizens of other nations) get themselves into trouble overseas.
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A measure of ageism
From here, I've got some data on age groups. Now, the normal thing the ABS does with this data - quite rightly, in accordance with its purpose - is look at various distributions across the entire population. However, if we look at the distribution of age across the working population (not a clearcut definition), we possibly get an idea of what a representative age distribution in the workplace "should" look like.
If I assume people can start working some time in their late teens, and finish around 65 (which is no longer the case, but its a lot more work if I want to look at individual years), then a workplace "should" have:
- 9% of workers under 20;
- 47% of workers over 40;
- 27% of workers over 50; and
- 8% of workers over 60.
If I consider workplaces which require a degree, then a workplace "should" have:
- 12% of workers under 24;
- 52% of workers over 40;
- 30% of workers over 50; and
- 9% of workers over 60.
If your workplace doesn't meet these estimates in the upper and lower ranges, are you being ageist?
Food for thought . . . (and maybe more accurate analysis by experts / people with more time)
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Changing jobs / careers
Ageism these days seems to start when people are in their 40s: in my case, I noticed a pronounced increase when I was in my 50s, and I think it is largely driven by an aspect people haven't talked about: personal "comfort" - in the sense of wanting to work with people who are similar, which, when that is free of bigotry, can result in stronger teams, but, in most circumstances, is simply a fancier glossing over bigotry against people for being different (exemplified by complaints against "ethnic" food, ignoring family duties of women, etc).
Workplaces are getting a lot better on this (we recently hired someone with a disability, for example), but there are still problems. In the case of ageism, I can sum up the unacknowledged residual problems for younger people working with older, more experienced people as:
I don't want to have to work with someone who reminds me of my disapproving / controlling / yucky parentsIt's never in any of the surveys (nor is the extent of stereotypical gender behaviour), but I suspect it is the reason some people have problems hiring older people - beyond the usual excuses around the myths associated with older people.
The converse of this, for younger and middle aged people with good relationships with their parents (or other older significant people - teachers, family friends, mentors, etc - even friends who are older * ), is being comfortable with working with older people.
We don't know to what extent these competing aspects are present, nor how to deal with the problem one, because no-one else seems to be thinking of this, and thus no-one seems to have collected any data.
So . . . going back to changing career or jobs, there are a number of problems I would expect to encounter, and ageism is right up there at the top of the list, beginning with the ageism of our neoliberal government which keeps raising the retirement age but doing nothing to address problems such as workplace insurance (if need be, and private insurers are refusing to provide insurance because they don't have data, the government MUST step in - as done with building inspectors at state level - and provide that insurance until the data is available!).
But there are other problems as well, including:
- people saying the work I'm doing is important (wastewater treatment has public health and environmental benefits, and many of have been pointing out benefits that are now described as "circular economy" for decades, so true enough), so I should keep going: not relevant, particularly as it might NOT BE POSSIBLE;
- well meaning idiots thinking this is about finding something I am happy about: I'm the main breadwinner in my family, and have a duty to support my family. The question of being happy is IRRELEVANT - we need money to pay the rent and other bills, buy food, cover health costs, and so on. I need something I can tolerate that meets our financial needs; and (this is the big one)
- there is NO help to find / select other job options. Everyone I've tried to talk to about this has been trained to aid people starting their career, or people who are in a situation where they can AFFORD to study (I don't have enough working years left to take on a student debt), or have been focused on the what-makes-you-happy bullshit, and thus have been utterly ****ing useless. A Lifelong Learning Fund like Europe has would have helped if it was available a decade ago (although back then I didn't know I was going to be in this position), and "Transition Counsellors" would help if they existed in my nation.
(I am still angry that the Foundation for Young Australians is continuing to refuse to release the data underlying their "towards a new work mindset" report - the release of that data would help EVERYONE trying to change careers, but they won't - possibly because of ageism? If there is another reason, they need to advise it!)
One final point: trying to do an internet search for any of these terms is useless: everything just goes to the bloody existing job agencies, which are useless when it comes to career change, or dealing with anything involving overcoming discrimination.
So . . . anyone got a job? 😀
* This raises the issue of how to deal with bigotry: I favour educating people as to why it is wrong, and how to recognise it, but there are increasingly people pushing meeting the people being discriminated against face-to-face. That is not practical - in fact, it is so impractical as to be absurd, but it does highlight the role that personal experience has is inclining people towards exclusion / inclusion.
