How Unions Can Help Solve The Student Debt Crisis and Skills Gap

“Degree inflation” is a known major issue: https://www.tearthepaperceiling.org/the-paper-ceiling

Harvard study: 69% of jobs require a Bachelor's degree or higher, 50% of workers don't have one

61% of employers have rejected an otherwise qualified
candidate because they didn't have a degree

A caveat: one downside of emplovers opening up who they will hire is downward pressure on wages.

Employers keep asking for highly specific degrees, so it's not really any Bachelor's degree any more

Fast food and retail are the new American jobs, the default, where everyone will need to start or may regress to during economic hardships regardless of their career path. That is why we should care about making them quality jobs. They have replaced factory jobs.

Factory jobs used to serve as a way of bringing people into the middle class without high skills (employers would train them) or a degree, and this was made possible by unions.

WSJ: Employers getting way more selective for higher wage, white collar jobs: https://apple.news/AXW9of8HyS-eXWDJlfVCNxw

People being subjected to nine rounds of interviews, having to create entire marketing strategies and defending them like a thesis before these employers, and having to spend upwards of 20 hours on one employer’s interview process

Constant need for new, specific skills and technologies

People are going to keep having to go into debt every 10-15 years for master’s and doctorate degrees to be able to meet employers’ requirements. This is really adding to the student loan crisis.

Formal education should not have to play the role of job training. It provides the fundamental intellectual toolbox to learn and lead.

Unions have provided apprenticeships traditionally and digital training in modern days

But employers are like "what's in it for me if they'll just leave?" Hence they won’t offer training and just keep asking workers to pay for more and more education on their own.

Employer lock in agreements/TRAPs from coding boot camps and even now for PetSmart groomers are capitalism's crappy solution.

Portability of union training vs employers promotes mobility instead of hindering it

Bargaining for student loan repayment assistance and tuition reimbursement

Got questions or comments about this episode? Is there another political or social issue you’d like me to cover? Have you faced oppression, have a story about bad bosses, a corrupt company, or another injustice you want to vent or spread the word about? I’d love to hear from you. Call in and leave a voicemail any time, day or night, toll free at 844-477-PUNK (7865)
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Episode Transcript

(00:01):
This is the fixer Punk podcast,the podcast that, unlike your boss,
won't judge you for deciding to putyour job and go and live in a
van. I'm Grayson Peltier, Sotoday I wanted to talk about this weirdness
that we're seeing in the labor marketoverall right now. And yes, some

(00:22):
people are still quitting their jobs togo and live in a van. Actually
sounds like a pretty good plan ifyou can pull it off right now,
especially if you're under a small businesstyrant, as Street Fight Radio would say,
or even a large business tyrant.It's a pretty good plan, even
though your boss might get upset aboutit and post about it in a manager's

(00:43):
support forum on Facebook. One ofmy going hypotheses through the pandemic was that
because of remote work, we wereagain to see more people being able to
actually be nomadic, do that kindof thing, live in and go across
the country if they wanted to,or even move to a lower cost local
rather than stuck in an urban area, because now they can do their jobs

(01:07):
remotely. But now employers are pullingthat back, and employers now overall,
according to an article in the WallStreet Journal, have become far more demanding,
especially for better paying, better conditionswhite collar jobs. There are people
that are going through numerous rounds ofinterviews not getting anywhere with it, and

(01:30):
employers are becoming far more selective.They're increasing their GPA requirements, they're increasing
their degree requirements. Somebody even saidthey went through nine rounds of interviews a
callback. This one person stated inthis Wall Street Journal article that they've spent
easily twenty hours on a single interviewprocess for just one job. And that

(01:56):
seems to be happening more and more, even though we are being fed this
narrative about a so called labor shortage, Really it isn't It is that there
are too many bad, poor qualityjobs and bad workplaces. They can't fill
jobs at too low of wages,and the intention of everything that's being done

(02:19):
economically and fiscally, the way thatI've explained it in the prior episodes,
is to push those people who shouldbe in good employment that is the highest
and best use of their skills andcapabilities, to push them into the low
wage work market to fill those rolesat those low wages, so employers don't
have to don't have to improve conditions. And I think that We have to

(02:42):
think very seriously about the fact thatwe used to obviously have like a bunch
of like middle class factory jobs andstuff like that, but that is unfortunately
a long gone air in America.The one thing that is helping it is
the infrastructure spending an investment with madein America requirements for a lot of the
stuff that President Biden has put throughthrough the Infrastructure Plans, the Inflation Reduction

(03:05):
Act, the Green Energy plans.That's helping the manufacturing economy come back a
little bit. But we have tocome to the realization that the American job
now, the default job, thestarting position, regardless of who you are
right now, is going to bea minimum wage service, retail type job.

(03:28):
Those are the jobs in this country. And just in the same way
that factory work was respected through unionsfor many, many years and that is
what built our middle class, wehave to have the same thing when it
comes to these retail jobs and understandthat even if you're in that really high
paid position. Government a ton oflayoffs at Google, Facebook, Twitter,

(03:52):
these big companies, and now thesepeople are spending a longer time unemployed.
People statistically now are spending a farlonger time unemployed after being laid off than
they have in the past, andthe requirements are increasing for these jobs in
many, many ways, for goodjobs. So the people with good jobs
are now possibly losing their apartments,losing their housing, They are going to

(04:17):
possibly need government assistance, which isgoing to probably get cut by this whole
debt sealing nonsense that the Republicans havedecided to pull off, and they are
more likely than not many of themare going to wind up in the low
wage labor sector. But now,in terms of how employers are playing things

(04:38):
and how they've played things with increasingand increasing requirements, I think that not
only do we have a solution herefor the unions and the labor movement to
increase in low wage sectors to improvethe conditions of that in reflection of the
fact that that is the default jobthat you're going to start within this country.

(05:00):
Whether you're going to eventually become adoctor or a lawyer, or an
engineer or an accountant, you're probablygoing to wind up starting out in the
low wage marketing. You're probably goingto wind up falling back at least a
few times into that low wage job. You are a lot closer even if
you're making seventy thousand dollars a year, you're a lot closer to winding up

(05:23):
in a seven to twenty five anhour McDonald's job than you are to being
the CEO of your company. Andthat's just reality, and a lot of
people are going to see that inthe coming year. And my hope is
that the economic gaslighting that Republicans andconservative propaganda media are now going to be
able to push even further because nowwe're getting rid of our journalists too.

(05:46):
A journalists are getting laid off atrecord numbers, and funding for progressive organizations
just keeps plummeting in the media space. That they're gonna be able to see
through that and decide to rise upagainst these employers. And there's a little
bit of evidence of that with abunch of college educated people who are becoming
Starbucks baristas that home beame. Someof those people were the people that founded

(06:09):
Starbucks Workers United and started to organizemany Starbucks locations and get the union movement
going in that organization. So thatcould be a positive thing. However,
when it comes to these skills andthe way these employers are becoming far more
selective, I feel there is astrong case for a trade union movement within

(06:33):
higher skilled professional type workers. Andone of the reasons why I think that
would actually be mutually beneficial is becauseof the landscape around training right now.
What's happening is we have the studentloan deck crisis going at the same time.
And the thing is is that collegeeducation is supposed to be a starting

(06:57):
point for you to develop the intellectualskill is necessary to perform in the workplace
and to advance to leadership. That'sthe fundamental level of intellectual skills to do
that. What employers have gotten tois they've gotten to the point where they
believe that the college education is supposedto provide one hundred percent of what the
worker needs to be able to performin that environment. And when you have

(07:18):
an employee who is five ten yearsremoved from college, there's no way on
earth, with the way that technologyis advancing, that that is going to
be able to keep up something thatwas taught ten years ago, even an
elite level education, there are goingto be some differences. There are gonna
be some things that have changed inthese professions, and employers don't want to

(07:38):
train it, and employers will comeup with all these extra requirements, some
of these technical employers are increasing thestandards on their tests, and many of
them are asking for additional higher levelsof education. And one thing that I
think is particularly pernicious. We alreadyknow statistically from Harvard study that sixty percent

(08:01):
of employers are sixty one percent ofemployers rejected somebody who is otherwise qualified for
a position. And this is evenpre pandemic, and all of everything that's
happened in the economy, they've rejectedsomebody. The majority have rejected somebody because
they just lacked a bachelor's degree andthe study isn't terribly clear if they mean

(08:22):
a degree in a specific field orjust a degree overall. Somebody who was
otherwise qualified getting rejected for that job. So employers could fill those rules with
somebody but that is qualified, butbecause they lacked a degree, then they
weren't filling them. But now whatwe're seeing is we're seeing that employers are

(08:43):
not just looking for a degree,they're looking for very specific degrees. And
this is contributing to the student loandebt crisis because people are winding up,
even including somebody like myself possibly needingto get a master's or a doctorate just
to meet the minimum requirements, becausethey'll say they want to say a bachelor's
degree plus experience in this field.They'll say saying like a bachelor's degree in

(09:05):
this specific thing that was maybe inventedthree or five years ago, or they'll
say in like one job will saythat it has to be in this particular
discipline, even if you have aton of experience in that discipline, like
for me, I'm a political communicationsconsultant, an advocacy communications consultant. I
have basically all the same training andprofessional experience as somebody who can do marketing

(09:28):
on a business side, and infact, I have done marketing on the
business side for many years when Iwas not working in politics. However,
employers will not consider me in theregular employment market because I don't have a
degree, a bachelor's degree specifically thatsays the word marketing on it. In

(09:50):
some cases, even though I've donea lot of successful digital content creation work.
I was one of the earliest adoptersof multiple social media platforms lives,
dreaming, and podcasts all the wayback to two thousand and nine. Because
I don't have a degree that readsthe words social media on it, and
that's a new requirement that I've seenfrom an employer. They won't consider me,

(10:13):
and that means that I'm probably goingto if I have to go to
the corporate side, which obviously Ihave opportunities on the political side and that's
what I really want to do,and opportunities in my own business. But
when you have your own business,obviously InCom fluctuates, so sometimes you go
out and you seek jobs to tryto fill the gap for it. I
don't necessarily have to do that.It's more of a I want to do

(10:35):
that in order to get more moneyin the door temporarily at least until election
cycle funds start to pick up again. I would have to probably go and
get a master's degree, and that'sjust going to add more student loan debt
on top of the debt that Ialready have for something that I'm already qualified

(10:58):
in. So then how does unionizationhelp this problem? If you remember,
in terms of like trades, there'sa lot of people will talk about like
apprenticeships and trade school and trade trainingprograms as an alternative to college. But
I don't see him as an alternativeto college. I see him as something

(11:18):
that works alongside it, And Ithink that's ideal because you get the fundamental
leaderships and intellectual skills from college.And of course the reason why conservatives don't
want to fund college is because thenyou have the intellectual skills to know that
people are screwing you over, andjust like those Starbucks workers, go and
unionize. But also the idea ofa union apprenticeship and continuing training through a

(11:45):
union could be very valuable for upperskilled white collar jobs as well, especially
with the technology changing as quickly asit is and the demands of employers constantly
changing, and employers not really wantingto pay for training because they're like,
Okay, why would we spend moneyon training somebody when they may go to

(12:05):
our competitor. And some employers haveeven gotten really really crafty about this,
and even in situations where it doesn'teven make sense that much, which one
of them is pet smart dog groomerswho are being put into these plans which
are called training repayment agreement provisions ortraps. What's going on with those is

(12:28):
that employers will provide the training,but they will require you if you leave
the job after before a certain periodof time has elapsed, they'll require you
to pay back thousands upon thousands ofdollars for the training that they provided you.
And that, of course, justlike the name says, it traps
the worker in a lower wage anddoesn't allow them to get the full value

(12:50):
of their of their capabilities. Sounion based training, on the other hand,
would be portable between employers and youcould get the training and if you
need to go to another employer,that isn't really a problem. You don't
have to pay it back. Therecould be apprenticeship programs that are specific to

(13:13):
a particular new technology. There arepeople that could use that technology, could
use that technique, that could gointo an apprenticeship program and get that training.
And there are plenty of examples ofunions doing digital training, even for
lower skilled workers. Like one ofthe ones that comes to mind is a
janitorial union for the New York Cityapartment buildings janitorial and maintenance workers. They're

(13:39):
part of the thirty two BJ union. Their training or their union has a
training fund, and the training fundprovided them computers to use at home so
they could learn how to use computerbased systems that a lot of these buildings
were now having because they now havelike different building management software air systems to

(14:01):
log into payroll systems, like managemail room stuff in these large apartment buildings,
and they needed people to know thosethings. Employers needed needed their workers
to know how to use those things. But these lower wage workers weren't going
to get that training elsewhere. Sothe union stepped in and with some financial

(14:22):
contribution from the employers too, theymanaged to make that a reality. And
they've been doing this, i thinksince the early two thousands, even training
these janitorial and building maintenance workers onhow to use technology, and it's been
a very mutually beneficial engagement. Contrastthat with the idea of okay, go

(14:43):
back to go back to college,get yourself ten twenty thirty thousand dollars in
debt so that you can have thatqualification, and then when you come back
here, maybe we'll say, oh, yeah, your degree is in one
word, off from what we wantedto be. So even though you have
the skills, you have the training, because your degree says one thing that's
slightly different from the one thing thatwe're asking for a description, you're not

(15:07):
going to get it. So thenthat collaborative relationship in terms of qualification through
the union would really be beneficial,so we don't have to have this what
they called degree inflation, which thefolks that Opportunity at Work put out a
bunch of reports on this. They'vebeen running a bunch of ads called Tear

(15:28):
the Paper Ceiling that relates specifically tothe issue of bachelor's degrees being required for
positions that shouldn't require them, whichis in some ways a different issue,
but this is basically just an extensionof it. Is the fact that now
we're requiring these more and more specializedthings and not looking at the skills that

(15:48):
workers already bring to the table.So at that point we have to start
thinking about ways that people can betrained and do so without having to increase
the amount of debt burden on theworker, because now employers used to provide

(16:10):
training. Employers used to bring peoplein who just had a high school diploma
and gave them the training they needed. But they're not or what they're doing
is they're charging them. And thenthese other models are There are vocational training
programs that operate somewhat independently of individualemployers, and some of these tech occupations
specifically, there are these coding bootcamps out there, but some of them

(16:33):
are also very expensive, and whatthey're doing is is that they're oftentimes also
tying people to one employer and pushingthem into very low wage positions while they're
quote unquote repaying the training fees theirincome sharing agreements, where they're basically just
sticking them into whatever employer needs cheaptech talent, and they're kind of stuck

(16:57):
there. Some boot camps are worsethan Some of them are just strictly private
pay and then you just pay backlike a monthly payment like a typical student
loan. But others have this interestingrelationship with employers where they're basically serving as
feeding programs for very low wage jobs. And with a union based program,
in contrast to that, you wouldhave you would have prevailing wages, you'd

(17:23):
have wage standards and contracts and collectivebargaining industry standards and say, well,
no, because they've been through thistraining program, they deserve more money.
They deserve to be paid at ahigher wage than what you're offering them,
because right now, nobody really advocatesfor the worker. In the typical training

(17:45):
training provider works for the works forthe employer. Basically, they work for
their own profit, and then theemployers operating for their own profit, and
then the government is somewhat neutral andmost of these things, and of course
student loan providers want to get repaid, and the government, especially the Republican

(18:06):
politicians in our government, want thestudent loans to be repaid, so they
are going to force you into workand not give you relief on those student
loans, so they can force youinto low wage work. It's more of
obviously, these training repayment arrangements andsome of the stuff the coding move camps
are pulling off is a lot moreexplicit, but it's implicit also with student
loans and the fact that even fora training that maybe the employer won't recognize,

(18:30):
you're going to be forced to payit back, and you're paying that
back painstakingly at a low wage job, and they want to push you into
that and not allow you the timeyou need to find your way into a
higher paying job that actually aligns withthe skills that you've learned. So we
can solve it on that level aswell. We can make sure that that

(18:52):
upskilling is serving the worker and notjust serving the employer, because a lot
of times will happen with like upskillingtype efforts, and this is kind of
a fear of mind in terms ofefforts to upskill workers who are who are
in situations where they don't have adegree, or their degree maybe isn't quite
right, and then the employer comesin and gives them this hope of this
training and this pathway, or theemployer goes to a community college or some

(19:19):
sort of institution to create this pathwayfor them to learn the skills necessary to
work in their particular organization. Isthat that's a good thing. The worker
now has more skills, they're goingto be more trained. But we have
to look at the employers probably doingthis in their self interests, not just
to fill the position, but tomake sure that they can fill that position

(19:40):
at a lower cost. And theOpportunity at Work report does actually mention that
there is a cost inflation to employersof when they demand a degree, and
we want employers to pay out ahigher fair wage. But without that extra
representation, adding training is just goingto create a perpetual hamster wield. We

(20:03):
we've got to add training. TheOpportunity at Work folks are definitely one hundred
percent right that we have to findways to get people who don't have a
degree or the right degree into theworkforce to have them be used at the
highest and best level of their potential. But we have to also make sure
people aren't being taken advantage of atthe same time. And that's why you

(20:23):
have this pairing, and the pairingbetween that representation for the worker and the
employer getting the skills they need isthe ideal situation. And it's also definitely
an added value thing. I thinkthat in some cases in certain trades,

(20:45):
somebody correct me if I'm wrong.You can call in eight four four four
seven seven pounc eight four four fourseven seven seven eight six five leave a
message anytime, dare Knight. Butunion crafts people and a lot of people,
even like the entertainment unions like theWriters Guild and sag Aftra, the

(21:07):
union workers are considered to be thehigher quality workers that it's worth paying a
premium for. It's a sag aftercard in Hollywood's considered to be an accomplishment.
If you're like a union plumber orelectrician carpenter, it kind of conveys
that you have some sort of skillor talent experience in what you're doing that's
above and beyond a typical random laborer, and that may make things a little

(21:33):
bit better for employers, a littlebit easier for employers to tolerate, Oh
yeah, we can pay higher wagesand we can do things with a union,
instead of employers feeling like, ohyeah, this is just some money
grab, which it's not. It'snot. The workers are getting what they're
rightfully owed, and they're getting thesame kind marketplace power that the employers and
the capitalists have had because, asI say, money, in some cases,

(21:57):
if you've been on the higher endof wealth and the society, you
get to realize just how fake moneyis, and that hard work really doesn't
pay off its If you negotiate andmanipulate a few keystrokes in an investment,
if you go into a negotiation andyou talk to somebody in the right way,
some ways, you can sometimes youcan make hundreds of hundreds of dollars,
thousands of dollars, tens of thousandsof dollars appear seemingly out of nowhere

(22:22):
in seconds or in an hour ortwo, just by saying the right combination
of words. If you say theright combination of words, or you push
the right combination of keystrokes on yourkeyboard. When you're trading stocks, Boom,
you have a few thousand extra dollars. Meanwhile, you go to a
normal job, You're lucky to walkout there with one hundred bucks in your

(22:44):
pocket at the end of the day. So you kind of learn that money
in that way is fake. Soif you're obviously union without training one hundred
percent valuable, all they're doing isjust giving workers that same leverage that the
cap to listen to the wealthy folksare used to having for themselves and giving
it to everybody and giving it tothe people who actually did the work to

(23:07):
be able to earn that. Butadding the training component could also increase overall
value as well, while helping topush down the need for people to constantly
have to go back to college toget new skills, because over the course
of a career, you're going towind up possibly having to get Oh,

(23:27):
yeah, you had a master's degreein that that you were in ten years
ago. Now you've got to earnanother master's degree in this, or you
have to go get a doctorate inthat, or you have to go get
a certification this from this coding bootcamp to be able to do your job
now, and with AI and technologycoming, it's going to get even worse.
And then you wind up having acycle of never ending student loan debt.

(23:48):
And then of course higher wages makeit easier to pay off student loan
debt and student loan repayment and stufflike that can be offered as employer benefits.
Some employers have in the low agesectors have started to offer like tuition
assistance and things like that, andtrying to say that oh yeah, if
you bring in the union that you'renot going to have that stuff anymore.
Truth be told, a lot ofthese employer programs are very restricted, especially

(24:11):
the ones in the low wage sectors. But unions can obviously say, well,
when we negotiate, we can makeit so it's a broader scope of
training, a broader scope of studentloan repayments assistance that we will bargain for
with your employer on your behalf,and that is really just a bonus to

(24:34):
this whole process and showing the valueto the workers as well, especially the
upwardly mobile ones, the ones whothink, oh yeah, I'm not the
lazy one who slacks off all day, who needs to be protected by a
just cause firing process, which we'reall human, we all make mistakes,
we all could possibly need an advocateto help us keep our jobs. So

(24:55):
that's incorrect. But if in themoment that's what you're feeling, having the
idea that this is going to helpme pay for training or give me training
or help me to be a betterworker might be enough to flip somebody from
a no vote to a yes voteand not having the employers saying, oh,
yeah, there's no more the trainingprograms or whatever are going to go

(25:17):
away when you know the truth andyou know that you're going to get training,
but just without these traps, thesemetaphorical traps and literal traps, the
acronym trap training repayment agreement provisions aswell that could also serves as a good
boon to all of this. Butin conclusion, we have to know when

(25:45):
these things happen in the labor marketthat employers are trying to find ways to
control people by any means necessary,whether that's by low wages, whether that's
by training, anything to keep yougoing in a cycle of being an indentured

(26:06):
servant to them and having to payevery single time for the things that they
want you to pay for, sothey're going to put you in a financially
precarious situation. They want to makesure that you're all beaten down before they
come in and try to cover youand get the three count. They're not
going to try to get you atyour strongest necessarily. They want to put
you down so that it is harderfor you to get back up. And

(26:33):
that is exactly why they come upwith these ridiculous things, these ridiculous interview
processes where people are even being askedto, like for a marketing job,
being asked to prepare a whole contentcampaign strategy before even having an initial phone
interview, and and having to presentyour work to a panel like you're defending
a PhD thesis just to get ajust to get a marketing job. In

(26:57):
some ways, it's not even atgiving themselves the most value as a company.
In some ways, it's just abouttheir ability to control you. But
if they know that they put theseobstacles in place, and they make it
seem like they're doing you the greatestfavor in the world by letting you come
to their company, then they knowthat that is going to keep you more
and more subservient and more like,please, please, can I have a

(27:21):
job? Can I have a job? Please? I'll be I'll be your
servant, I'll be your slave.That is precisely where they want you to
be. But that isn't how ithas to be. If we structure our
economy differently, if we provide peopleeconomic support so that when they fall,
they are not crushed to the pointwhere they're begging for any hope or help,

(27:42):
even if it's exploitative help, andwe give people the training and the
skills they need, whether that bethrough colleges, whether that be through public
funding, which public funding is stillvery important, public funding for education and
student loan debt forgiven, and publicfunding for those training programs along the way

(28:03):
that you're going to need throughout yourcareer to get the skills that you need
so that you're not having to dumpten twenty thirty thousand dollars every ten to
fifteen years to get the latest skillof the latest fad that employers are going
to want, or that you're nothaving to get the latest certification for the
flash in the pan technology that's onlygoing to last three years, but they
expect you to have five years ofexperience in then we can start to make

(28:26):
this more fair. Workers can performat their best, do their best work,
both for our economy and our people, if we just stopped crushing them
and start giving them both the materialresources, housing, food, healthcare,
and the training and skills that theyneed in whatever is needed in that day,

(28:48):
without crushing them under financial burdens thatthey just cannot bear well. If
you have any stories like this,any stories of lawyers making your life miserable,
training programs making your life miserable,student loan debt making your life miserable,
fears about the debt ceiling deal,any dilemma that you're facing right now

(29:11):
because of the oppression that we allface in the society, I want to
hear about it. You can callin leave a message anytime, day or
night eight four four four seven sevenpunk. That's eight four four four seven
seven seven eight six five. Youcan also shoot me an email Grayson at

(29:33):
off Speed Solutions dot com, oryou can follow me on social media.
I do check messages there, althoughemail and phone are far better, But
follow the social media anyway because Igive you good updates most of the time.
TikTok is most up to date withcurrent events content, and that is

(29:55):
at fixer Punk. Also, Instagramis at fixer Punk. Twitter is at
Grayson Nation g r E y sO n n A t I o N.
Thank you so much for choosing tospend some of your time with me
today and I hope you'll join meagain for the next episode.