Friday, February 24, 2006

Overpaid & Underpaid positions

So I know this is a senstive topic. Many readers may belong to fields I list as overpaid or underpaid, but there are always exceptions. I'm just writing my thoughts, however misguided they may be. If that's the case, please comment. I'd like to learn more. So here we go: Overpaid 1. Actors, Actresses, Musicians, Models, Pro athletes. Being gifted with amazing talents is great. Being beautiful is a blessing. Having the ability to portray someone else, superb. But worth millions of dollars? I don't think so. Sadly, it seems no matter what happens this won't change. 2. Dock workers (aka Stevedores) Unions probably have a lot of blame for their pay. Stevedores command a lot of pay and power. Too much so in my opinion. They control what comes in and out of the country, and should they strike, we're all screwed. I've heard that many get paid as much as $60-80/hr not including overtime. 3. Executives of public corporations I'm sure everyone has heard about how grossly overpaid CEOs are at companies whos stocks are underperforming. CEOs definitely deserve to be well payed, but getting paid over a few million is a little out of whack. Underpaid 1. Teachers (K-12) This field deserves to be paid more. Even with only 8 months of work, which by the way entails hours of overtime grading, planning, and meeting with kids and parents, they are underpaid. Teaching should be a profession that people fight to enter, much like law or medicine. Our kids are our future. 2. Public Servants (Fire, Police) Putting their lives at risk everyday, public servants like fire fighters and police deserve to get paid for the work they do plus the risks they take. Some abuse their power, but for the most part, they serve the public and deserve to be paid more. 3. Janitors That's right...they do jobs that no one else wants, just like garbage collectors, but get paid much less. A little off topic of this article, but I do believe unions are no longer a good thing. With a global economy and government laws that protect workers, it seems like unions should lose power. Look at our automotive industry which is in shambles...I do believe unions are partly to blame.

1 comment:

RS said...

I have to say that I agree 100% with everything that you wrote in this post. I just don't know that anything can be done about it. It is way out of hand though.