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To: flatsville who wrote (19022)	9/17/2000 3:01:59 PM
From: patron_anejo_por_favor	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 436258

Flats...in looking at it some more, I certainly see your point. I don't begrudge blue collar workers their "piece of the pie"....after all, at least these folks are working and producing or providing a needed service. I was wrong to imply that a bus driver in L.A. (where the cost of living is skyrocketing anyway) couldn't possibly be worth 80K/yr, no matter how hard he works. The reason I posted the article was to illustrate the building pressures of wage inflation, which is the very problem that several Fed officials (just last week) took pains to reassure us was not on the horizon. Once the bubble asset inflation rips through the economy, we'll see nurses, bus drivers, school teachers making 100K; janitors, landscape maintainence workers, road construction workers making 60K, Fast food workers and grocery stocking clerks making 35K, etc. All of the above before benefits (which are skyrocketing themselves, particularly health care costs). This is just the beginning.....

To: flatsville who wrote (19022)	9/17/2000 10:41:55 PM
From: Oblomov	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 436258

Flats, on "righteous indignation": most of that response is founded on a set of middle-class conceits, namely that 1) white-collar jobs are of higher status than blue-collar jobs, and are therefore deserving of higher pay 2) that a college degree grants a certain set of entitlements, such as the "right" to have a higher standard of living that those in blue-collar jobs 3) that one's worth as a person is determined by the status of one's employment Although these precepts may be laughable, they are believed tacitly, or so it seems, by most middle-class Americans. In light of this, it is helpful to review the definition of "proletariat": Main Entry: pro·le·tar·i·at Pronunciation: "prO-l&-'ter-E-&t, -'tar-, -E-"at Function: noun Etymology: French prolétariat, from Latin proletarius Date: 1853 1 : the lowest social or economic class of a community 2 : the laboring class; especially : the class of industrial workers who lack their own means of production and hence sell their labor to live ----------- Sounds like most of the middle class as well, despite their petit-bourgeois ambitions.

To: flatsville who wrote (19022)	9/18/2000 10:51:26 AM
From: William JH	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 436258

Flatsville, By law, bus drivers can only have 10 hours of "seat time" per day. They can be on the clock for 16 hours, but some companies cut that back. There are a few drivers at Orange County Transit who make $60,000 per year. They do it by working 7 days a week (voluntary call backs they are called), and by bidding for runs that have some overtime. Transit companies are all trying to go to two tier systems where new hires get less benefits and pay than existing employees. I think the news coverage of the MTD strike has been a crock for the most part.