Would you take a 1950s 'dirty' job now?

[coachmann]

I can see from my extended family that jobs ain't easy to come by and that travel is a fact of life. Jobs were ten-a-penny in the 1950s and 60s and TV 'historians' who weren't there tell everybody no one wanted the dirty jobs while Mr.MacMillan told us we never had it so good. So this thread set me thinking that if jobs were still ten-a-penny, how many people today would take those jobs? We have already had a thread on steam railway work and it was clear that folk thought the job was dirty and benieth them.

[kevinlms]

I can see from my extended family that jobs ain't easy to come by and that travel is a fact of life. Jobs were ten-a-penny in the 1950s and 60s and TV 'historians' who weren't there tell everybody no one wanted the dirty jobs while Mr.MacMillan told us we never had it so good. So this thread set me thinking that if jobs were still ten-a-penny, how many people today would take those jobs? We have already had a thread on steam railway work and it was clear that folk thought the job was dirty and benieth them.

 

But wasn't it case of there were lots of jobs that were cleaner, regular hours & paid around the same, if not better. As opposed to the railways that were dirty & unsociable hours. You have to compare apples to apples, not to other fruit or even vegetables.

 

Kevin Martin

[S.A.C Martin]

I can see from my extended family that jobs ain't easy to come by and that travel is a fact of life. Jobs were ten-a-penny in the 1950s and 60s and TV 'historians' who weren't there tell everybody no one wanted the dirty jobs while Mr.MacMillan told us we never had it so good. So this thread set me thinking that if jobs were still ten-a-penny, how many people today would take those jobs? We have already had a thread on steam railway work and it was clear that folk thought the job was dirty and benieth them.

 

Trust me Larry, I've applied for those sort of cleaning jobs, anything that a lot of my peers consider "beneath them". The moment they look up your profile and see you have a degree, forget it. They want someone to take the job and stay in it ad infinitum.

 

The recent interview I had with a particular company was an eyeopener. They don't take on people below a certain age, and make redundant everyone above a certain age (55 for the record). The top and bottom of the working lives are being shut out, sadly.

[Mod6]

Jobs were ten-a-penny in the 1950s and 60s and TV 'historians' who weren't there tell everybody no one wanted the dirty jobs while Mr.MacMillan told us we never had it so good. So this thread set me thinking that if jobs were still ten-a-penny, how many people today would take those jobs? We have already had a thread on steam railway work and it was clear that folk thought the job was dirty and benieth them.

 

This has been hived off from the M6 toll topic to stop the latter going too OT.

[Allegheny1600]

MOST CERTAINLY!!!

In fact, what difference what decade you're in - if you need a job, you take a job, period (as they say in the US!).

If the job is too physically demanding, you get a different job!

I used to do a 48 hour week, mixing and casting concrete, (from 20Kg lintels to 2 1/2 ton staircases!) taking care of the moulds and even polishing the castings - all in the old Gt. Northern railway warehouse, Friargate, Derby and that place was designed to keep things cold - it still worked as in the height of summer, it was cool & in winter, it was bitter! Some days, we couldn't work as our water supply froze!

That was tough, I was young & fit but I still got out as soon as I could.

The thing is, you can always get a job if you're already in a job - if you've been on the dole for months (or, years!), you will really struggle, trust me, I know!

I later went for a degree in mathematics but still had to take jobs that some would call "beneath me" as I was by then too old for the plum jobs!

Did it matter, no!

I subsequently set up my own little company, it's stressful but oh, so satisfying and yet - if it went down the pan, I'd sweep the roads if I had to*.

Cheers,

John E.

 

*That would certainly be better than a couple of aspects of my last job - working as caretaker in an old peoples home!

[Coldgunner]

I've applied for near enough anything in my possible remit. All bar some temporary work, the last 7 months I have put out thousands of applications. Even considering looking abroad for work.

 

For someone who is qualified in Adminsitration, I seem to suffer a disadvantage for simply being a man. Yes, equality works both ways. I've been all over the country for interviews.

 

I would happily take a 50's 'dirty' job, but such jobs don't really exist any more.

[petethemole]

I spent large parts of my career doing much the same work as a groundworks labourer, but for less money, "Diggers" in field archaeology when development-led work took off in the early 70s were still paid as though they were "volunteers" i.e. about the same as the dole, even though most had degrees. The pay drove many talented workers who didn't get made up to "supervisor" out of the business and only really improved from the mid-80s. But we did it because we wanted to, and I think the same applied in earlier days to a fair proportion of those who worked on the railways, even as late as the 50s. In breaks from archaeology I worked in demolition, (fairly mucky and dangerous), as a general labourer for a guy rebuilding a range of farm buildings, a kitchen fitter's mate and painter/decorator. But these jobs were all offered through contacts and I knew the people I worked for or with. I'm not sure I would have taken them if offered by the Labour Exchange (as was). Now I mainly manage the projects but I still have to get down and dirty some of the time.

Pete

[coachmann]

This thread came as a shock seeing as I hadnt stated it. But I can see now how it came about.

 

Kevinims said :

But wasn't it case of there were lots of jobs that were cleaner, regular hours & paid around the same, if not better. As opposed to the railways that were dirty & unsociable hours. You have to compare apples to apples, not to other fruit or even vegetables.

Where you there Kevin? I was there and saw first hand how things went. Despite passing everything exam put in front of me, I was dragged out of art school at sixteen half qualified and found myself in the labouring market. So much for my other ambitions, but I got stuck into "dirty unsociable" railway work and other jobs. Talk of cleaner regular better paid jobs is fine for them with appropriate qualifications. Actually I was qualified to work in a nice 5-day week Designs Reproduction department at Calico Printers but left because of poor pay!!!

 

By the way, I never once came across a railwayman who only did it because there was now't else. The men did it because they wanted to; almost as if it was in their blood.

[Kenton]

Not wishing to take this one off topic as well and please don't misunderstand the point as being anti immigrant!

 

Things have changed a lot with the population and the type of jobs they are prepared to take on.

 

Back in the 50's - OK 60's because even I'm too young to have worked in the 50's, very few people traveled outside their home town to get work. You studied at school passed your exams and went to uni. That was a ticket into a better job but still unusual to move. If you wanted to travel you joined the services. There was still plenty of highly labor intensive industries to soak up everyone else and give them a job for life. Add to that it was still very common to follow family members into their industry.

 

These days not only have such basic labouring industries disappeared, but the populations other countries as well as our own have found it easier to travel to seek out work. Take a basic job many of us probably did while students - picking potatoes (substitute any crop), always low paid and hard work but hasn't changed too much in the last 50+ years. This and similar jobs are now taken by workers from other parts of Europe despite travel and near slum living conditions. I've heard several "native" residents saying that they will not do this work.

 

I firmly believe that many of the younger generation want to be bankers and not put in the work to get there.

 

But that is far from normal or a general statement on the youth of today. All the 18 to 25 year old young adults in the near vicinity are in good first jobs though applying themselves to the task and being open minded. Most probably have had encouragement from parents and family.

[S.A.C Martin]

These days not only have such basic labouring industries disappeared, but the populations other countries as well as our own have found it easier to travel to seek out work. Take a basic job many of us probably did while students - picking potatoes (substitute any crop), always low paid and hard work but hasn't changed too much in the last 50+ years. This and similar jobs are now taken by workers from other parts of Europe despite travel and near slum living conditions. I've heard several "native" residents saying that they will not do this work.

 

I've tried getting jobs in domestic cleaning; rubbish collection, shelve stacking, you name it, I've applied for it in the last two years and I know I'm not alone in being part of the "native" population trying to get menial jobs to pay the bills and get somewhere - anywhere - in the job market. If you have a degree, you're now considered handicapped for these jobs as you won't stick around if you can get something better.

 

Which to some extent IS true - but if you haven't got a job, it's a lot harder to get a better one than having a job and looking elsewhere! I can understand employer's views in that respect: they want people who will stay in the same job and not change around a lot. Someone with a degree is bound to do that.

 

I firmly believe that many of the younger generation want to be bankers and not put in the work to get there.

 

But that is far from normal or a general statement on the youth of today. All the 18 to 25 year old young adults in the near vicinity are in good first jobs though applying themselves to the task and being open minded. Most probably have had encouragement from parents and family.

 

Sorry Kenton, I'm scratching my head on this one. I disagreed with your initial statement and then you contradicted yourself with a statement I agree with.

[Kenton]

Sorry Kenton, I'm scratching my head on this one. I disagreed with your initial statement and then you contradicted yourself with a statement I agree with.

 

Note the word "many" and "local" - living in an affluent part of the Thames Valley those local do not have this attitude based on envy or blaming bankers for their situation. They just have got on with it and found a job, and yes most went to uni. Yet others in a local "sink" estate - yes their are such things even around here seem to just be envious of others and have spent all their lives quitting (on education, on social responsibility, on work) Again not all - just enough to be noticed.

 

It is a number of years since I was in the position of employing people - prior to the "banking crisis" - but even then there was discrimination against new graduates. No experience and little common sense. Advertise a job and out of 100 applicants you would only get one or two that would convince you with their meager cvs that they were worth the investment of time and money and the risk of being employable. Some simply a list of their pastimes, a brief reference to their student life and a list of paper qualifications. Nothing about what they had to offer my company or the skills they intended to develop with my company to make them a valuable employee and worth more than any other Joe off the street. Even at interview they would turn up scruffy and without having done any basic research, could hardly do anything other than answer yes or no or more often 'uh' to a question.

 

It has always been difficult to get a foot on the ladder but it is not just about telling an employer that you are available for work it is about convincing them that you have something to offer above all the rest. Much the same as being self-employed. Then if you get the work you need to exceed the performance of any one else who thinks they can do better than you.

[Oldddudders]

Expectations of life have risen dramatically since the '50s. In those days many school-leavers were pleased to take an apprenticeship in a trade or skill, which paid very poorly initially - but had "prospects". Yes, employment was full, and thus an increasing number of dirty and unsocial-hours jobs were going begging. It was at this time that the immigration from the West Indies started in earnest - and a good thing too, so we are told, because otherwise public transport and the NHS would have collapsed without these willing new faces.

 

Nowadays,in a far more consumerist society, young people reasonably expect to get a first job with a real wage/salary, so they can enjoy the zillion benefits of having a few quid in their pocket. Until a few years ago, that was feasible for many, but the present dreary financial climate has made life for school leavers much more tough. Uni, and other qualifications, are much more commonly studied for now than in the '50s. Even in my time at grammar school - 1959-66 - the size of the 6th form increased exponentially, and I would guess that about half of us went to Uni in my year, although I certainly didn't. It was said that the rise in further education was at the expense of the boring-but-reliable jobs like banking and insurance, where the best school-leavers were a regular source of quality recruits. Now these brighter kids went to Uni and took their skills elsewhere.

 

Dirty jobs have little appeal for anyone unless they are well paid, and of course few of them really are. Today, that must mean applicants are a bit desperate, as has been indicated above, which helps keep the wages low. Who is going to up the rates when there is a queue of willing applicants?

[Poggy1165]

The conditions of the 1950s are not there. There was (then) a good choice of jobs, and if you didn't like one you could walk into another. Pay was perhaps not that brilliant, but no one was on megabucks, not even the bosses. The difference between 'top' and 'bottom' in society was much smaller, and there were decent benefits if you fell sick or were out of work. Life was actually quite secure, albeit living standards were low by current standards. Many had what was, effectively, 'a job for life.'

 

I'm not in the labour market, but if I was, and there was a wide choice of secure, low-paid work I'd gladly do something. An eight hour shift in a small signal box, or a job as a goods guard would actually be quite appealing.

 

I know a young man with no qualifications (but quite, indeed very intelligent.) He has been in and out of work for several years, and generally leaves or gets sacked because he finds the task tedious and undemanding. However, to be fair to him, he always finds a new job quickly and works with a will. He's currently happy with his job, but in the long term may go back to education. I doubt he's the only one in his category.

[coachmann]

It was at this time that the immigration from the West Indies started in earnest - and a good thing too, so we are told, because otherwise public transport and the NHS would have collapsed without these willing new faces.

We are told a lot of things. When I started on the buses there were two or three West Indians, a few folk from Pakistan and a few from Poland. We all got on well although the Polish tended not to mix and hogged all the overtime. I do not recall more immigrants starting on the buses in the following 4½ years but a good many townsfolk did. Some Pakistani's worked in the few remaining mills but by 1965 when I left the town the immigrant presence during the day was palpable. In otherwords, they had failed to find work. This wasn't suprising seeing as so much of the indigenous population across the country was losing its jobs due to automation, closure of factories and the loss of jobs for life (railway, heavy engineering, truck and motor industry, bus body builders etc).

[hayfield]

Working in retail, many who went to uni and kept their part time / weekend work up, they are offered either additional hours or full time work. No brainer for the employer as they can pick and choose the better ones and have ready trained staff. For the graduates its an income till they find better employment many months after graduateing, some times well over a year later.

 

Low paid manual jobs are being taken up by by migrants who accept lower pay and poor conditions, live in crowded conditions (a bit like student accomadation) but being young enjoy the lifestyle, as its far better than they could expect in their country.

 

As said earlier many of those from estates or social housing have no expectation of having or needing to work, our benefit system is far too generous to those who should not recieve it, sadly to the cost of the most needy. Also there is a massive grey economy where a few hours of illegal activity pays more than a weeks work

 

We have too many seeking work and housing in this country, far too slowly those who run the country are beginning to realise this fact. I am not against imigrants, we all are indebted to many for their contribution to our society. However in the South East we are not only completing for work and housing with those born in other parts of this country, but with those from the EU and countries all over the world. I feel very sorry for the youngsters I work with, at the moment they have no prospects of buying their own homes and wages are kept artifically low due to the surplus workforce. In the 60 at least we had a hope of a bright future and a chance of making something for ourselves

[The Stationmaster]

I've tried getting jobs in domestic cleaning; rubbish collection, shelve stacking, you name it, I've applied for it in the last two years and I know I'm not alone in being part of the "native" population trying to get menial jobs to pay the bills and get somewhere - anywhere - in the job market. If you have a degree, you're now considered handicapped for these jobs as you won't stick around if you can get something better.

 

Which to some extent IS true - but if you haven't got a job, it's a lot harder to get a better one than having a job and looking elsewhere! I can understand employer's views in that respect: they want people who will stay in the same job and not change around a lot. Someone with a degree is bound to do that.

This to me sounds much more like the employment situation for youngsters in 'the prosperous south east' than some of the other things that have been written in this thread. Back in the late 1960s I walked into a job and with it a career that lasted me over 30 years - true there was competition for that job, quite a lot of competition but those who lost out quickly found something else. A year or three on from then I could get as much overtime as I wanted - 7 days a week if I wanted it - and I could also pick up regular bar work in the evenings and during holidays from the railway. In the last year or two my son has looked for casual bar or front of house jobs in the same town and not stood a chance - because all these jobs are snapped up by East European (mainly) immigrants many of whom then look after their pals for any casual work.

 

My son is well qualified for his line of work but it took him7 months to find a paid job in his chosen field while plenty of other employers were more than happy to have him work for them for nothing - it's a common thing in broadcast news and many of the 'highy successful' local commercial radio stations rely on unpaid labour for a lot of what they put out; it's unpaid because it's easy to get trained people to do it, they want to keep their hand in and can always hope for a paid job one day. When they do get a paid job the money is rubbish for the hours and commitment which is expected but it seems to be rather like the railway once was and folk do it because it's what they want to do.

 

But it is at present all about many people chasing too few jobs and moreover jobs which usually offer rubbish pay for long hours - I wonder how many folk actually have a contracted 48hour, 6 day, week for basically little more than the minimum wage and no chance to improve earnings by piece work or bonus? Putting it bluntly employment prospects 'in the prosperous Thames Valley' are abysmal - with hundreds of people chasing every vacancy.

[Guest Natalie Graham]

The benefit system was far more generous back in the '70s. No requirement to prove you were actively looking for work, just turn up and sign on once a fortnight and that was it. Plus the 'minimum amount you need to live on' back then has nothing like kept up with inflation in the years between then and today. The problem is not the benefit system but the fact that the mass employment industries which swallowed up the great body of people with no shool qualifications have gone. I remember the year I reached school leaving age and the consternation and anxiety of the lesser achieveing kids in my year when it was discovered that for the first time the National Coal Board were not recruiting. A whole load of kids who had assumed they would leave school and follow their fathers down the pit suddenly had that disappear and they had nothing to turn to. They were the first generation to face the prospect of large numbers leaving school and not having a job to go to. Making the benefits system yet harsher and forcing people to compete ever more desperately for an insufficient number of jobs isn't going to make those kind of jobs re-appear.

[coachmann]

The benefit system was far more generous back in the '70s. No requirement to prove you were actively looking for work, just turn up and sign on once a fortnight and that was it.

I signed on for the only time in my life during 1966 and as you say, there was no requirement to prove I was looking for work. But when McAlpines arrived in the town to build the Abergele Bye-Pass, I was given a card to go for a job there and was their first employee pay check No.1. Had I refused the work I'd have got no dole. It wasn't more generous in the 1960s.

[APOLLO]

I started my 5 year gas engineering technician apprenticeship with the North Western Gas Board in 1969. When we were not at tech doing ONC later HNC engineering we were working throughout the industry First 2 years we did gas fitting (lugging around the fitters tool bag & heavy coils of lead pipe). Next was production (gas works - dying out by then) - very mucky places, especially the retort houses and oxide pits (the bits that stank). Best part for me was distribution - gas mains & services, working with the gangs digging holes, laying pipes and fettling gas escapes, and of course, brewing tea and making toast on a coke brazier in the middle of winter - superb !!. I went into distribution after my apprenticeship for the next 40 years starting off with conversion from town gas to north sea gas in Wigan & Warrington - they were interesting times indeed. Everybody got stuck in, bosses and all.

 

"The gas board" was fantastic place to work until the National Grid took over around 2002 (well after privatisation) - Down the grid is the nickname now. When I retired a while ago it was all clean shirts, ties and computers. Very little actual "hands on" engineering - all £££££ accounting.

 

Nowt wrong with getting your hands dirty, where there's muck there's money, as they say over in Yorkshire

 

I feel sorry for todays kids, those that want to work that is. We desparatley need jobs, all types of jobs, but I fear many of todays kids would not do what many of our generation did. Though I did not start at the bottom, I had to learn from the bottom, and we had to take the rough with the smooth - we knew little else back then.

 

I could rant on about overseas outsourcing, manufacture of everything in China etc - but we all know about that - but does our government know, do they REALLY care ?.

 

Brit15

[Guest Max Stafford]

I would personally take any job to stay off the dole. Whether I'd enjoy it or not is another thing but needs must. I left school in 1980 right smack bang into the scary world that Natalie has described and since nobody was taking apprentices, my chances of learning a 'proper' skilled job were reduced to zero. Coupled with the fact that I didn't properly apply myself to the last two years of my schooling, that meant I had twelve years of jobs with low pay and not much in the way of prospects until I applied for my current job and just 'got lucky'. I don't honestly enjoy it any more, but it gave me a break I wouldn't have had otherwise and the pay's OK so I have to be grateful for that. It's interesting though that since I got actively involved with the WRHA , I've been increasingly involved in the P way side of things and find the work physically tough but hugely satisfying - especially the fact that you start a job knowing what's expected of you and you see something for your efforts at the end of the task. It's made me think a lot and I believe I probably missed my true vocation 30 years ago - shame I didn't know what I wanted! If I could pay off my (admittedly modest) mortgage I'd do this full time. After all, I'm used to dodgy hours and weekend working anyway!

If there's one way education could be improved from my day it's that there should be a lot more emphasis placed on vocational and life skills to get young folks thinking about what they want to do from as early an age as practical. It's a sure as hell fact that there will still be thousands out there like me who don't really have a clue what they want and in failing to inspire these youngsters into thinking about what they could be doing, the system is pre-programming them to fail.

Not everybody can be a professor or a TV anchor, but we should be encouraging equally those lads and lasses who want to operate a JCB as much of those who want to be barristers - who's going to build the courthouse if we don't?

 

Dave.

 

Dave.

[simon hudson]

I left school in 1971( I hated school and couldn't wait to leave).I always remember my mam going mad and saying" No son of mine is going to work in the pits" We lived in a town with three pits the town was built on coal.I was lucky my sister married the son of the local TV rental dealer and Electrical contractor. I worked there in the school (holidays after doing my paper round) and every Saturday. I managed to blag an apprenticeship and I had a great time alternating between the Electrical contracting side and the TV workshops.Then I decided I wanted to be a Radio-TV engineer I finished my time off with a local TV rental sales buisness thinking I would have a job for life

I would like to think I was decent competent engineer now I'm a dinosaur I just sell the things. I found it very sad to see especially from the 1980's as the pits closed whole families that have never worked or possibly wont ever work.I moved to North Wales about 5 yrs ago and got a job straight away through good fortune and contacts in the trade.Unfortunately at 56 I'm woried about my future no doubt like millions of people out there. It's an in joke at work "I might look good in a big orange apron" I think they are one of the few employers who prefer the more mature employee.going back to my childhood I'd be about 5 yrs old my grampa was talking to me and I'll always remember his words "You'll grow up son and have a job and at 65 you will retire" How times have changed!!.sorry if it was a bit of a ramble-Simon

[D802 FORMIDABLE]

Its a no brainer for me as I would do anything to put food on the table for my family regardless of what it was!!!!

[kevinlms]

This thread came as a shock seeing as I hadnt stated it. But I can see now how it came about.

 

Kevinims said : Where you there Kevin? I was there and saw first hand how things went. Despite passing everything exam put in front of me, I was dragged out of art school at sixteen half qualified and found myself in the labouring market. So much for my other ambitions, but I got stuck into "dirty unsociable" railway work and other jobs. Talk of cleaner regular better paid jobs is fine for them with appropriate qualifications. Actually I was qualified to work in a nice 5-day week Designs Reproduction department at Calico Printers but left because of poor pay!!!

 

By the way, I never once came across a railwayman who only did it because there was now't else. The men did it because they wanted to; almost as if it was in their blood.

 

Sorry, is there a point to this question? I don't recall making any comment that denegrated dirty jobs or railwaymen generally. I have an extensive range of books, many written by railwaymen of the period, with a range of jobs & views.

 

What is apparent to me, is the dedication of the vast majority to their jobs which was carried out in some terrible working conditions. I have a book by a former ganger who worked on the Settle & Carlisle line. One of the tasks he described in detail was chipping the sheets of ice off the water troughs, a dangerous task standing on the icy surrounds. It took ages, only to stand aside for a train, for it to shower water everywhere and the whole process would need to start again. Soul destroying work without a doubt and it is to their credit that men like him turned up each day. Without them, the railways would have stopped in winter.

 

There are similar stories by locomen, cleaning locos at ungodly hours or loco fitters that had to repair locos by lantern or lift heavy items in dark, filthy pits.

 

In some of these books, the authors (REAL RAILWAYMEN - like you) pointed out that some people left, not because they couldn't handle the work or there was 'now't else', but because railwaymen were apparently hunted down because of their commitment to work & because they could be trusted to work unsupervised directly. It would certainly be different in many parts of the country, I agree.

 

So far from denigrating railwaymen of your period, my view is exactly the opposite.

 

Regards

 

Kevin Martin

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

But wasn't it case of there were lots of jobs that were cleaner, regular hours & paid around the same, if not better. As opposed to the railways that were dirty & unsociable hours. You have to compare apples to apples, not to other fruit or even vegetables.

When I entered the labour market in the 70s employment prospects were still very good in the South East. I had no hard and fast ambitions or formed career plans and did a lot of shopping around for my first permanent job, while happily working on a somewhat casual 'on-demand' basis with a retailer who liked me. That experience stayed with me, because straight up, a lot of recruiting was 'join us and be bored / poorly treated / badly directed / never challenged at Traditional Doings Ltd.'. A prize exhibit in this department was BR I am sorry to say. I full well knew BR was facing major technical challenges, there were problems to solve to deliver a competitive service; but if the interviewer knew that he was very careful to conceal the fact. Whereas other employers were full of the challenges, the demands, the difficulty; and the excellent pay and conditions. Join us and see if you make the grade, oh, and here's a load of cash while you are at it. It really was everything from apples served as Tarte Tatin to rotten vegetables presented as pig swill.

[Horsetan]

....I firmly believe that many of the younger generation want to be bankers famous and rich and not put in the work to get there....

 

Just a slight amendment there....