Lifestyles of the working class

The Teamsters Union master agreements of the late 50s raised the bar for industrial unions like the UAW and the Steelworkers. By the mid-60s the unionized working class had created the middle class.

Before the WWII, being "middle class" meant you had hired help in the house.

By 1970, being middle class meant you had a house in the burbs and two cars and your kids were going to post-secondary, all on the strength of your grade 9 education and your job at US Steel or General Motors.

It was always hilarious to me how the social scientists created the white-collar/blue-collar paradigm, wherein white-collar workers were placed higher in the social hierarchy than the grunts. The reason Oakville Ontario was the highest income postal code in Canada for decades wasn't because of doctors and lawyers and successful entrepreneurs, but because of the Ford assembly plant.

The post-war working class was where most post-war immigrants landed. In the fifties, they mostly came from a Europe that had been decimated by the war. Within three years of getting off the boat at Pier 21, we owned a house. 

Contrast that to the lot of working class immigrants arriving here today. 

It's been a while since we got any from Europe. (Although circumstances in Ukraine could change that.) Instead, they're coming from what we euphemistically refer to as "less-developed" countries. Those are the countries devastated by the legacy of colonialism and the various wars we have inflicted on them, always for their own good, of course.

And guess what? All those quality union jobs that used to await immigrants?

Why, they've all been sent to Mexico or China or elsewhere overseas!

After all, why pay an immigrant thirty bucks an hour to build a GM pickup in Oshawa, when you can just move the entire assembly plant to Mexico, and potential immigrants can stay home and build the same truck for two bucks an hour?

The jobs left for working class immigrants no longer allow the standard of living afforded the immigrants of past generations.

Today, Pier 21 is just a museum.

Today, working class immigrants have a wide range of minimum wage jobs available to them, none of which will provide a living wage, let alone the prospect of achieving financial security.

Unfortunately, they'll never own a home or a car, will never accumulate inter-generational wealth, and are doomed to live a hand-to-mouth existence that the social scientists label "lifestyles of the working poor." 

But don't worry...

Experts at the most prestigious schools have been awarded generous grants to study the matter.

Immigrants

My parents got off the boat at Pier 21.

Dad’s first job in the promised land was shovelling coal. With a hand shovel, not a power shovel.

It was a fluke we arrived in Canada, but a well thought out fluke.

On Dad’s side, we had multiple family connections in Ohio and Illinois.

On Mom’s side, there were well established aunties and cousins in New York and New Jersey.

But we came to Canada instead.

My parents had lived the WW2 at ground level. They thought Canada would be a better bet.

They’d seen enough of war, and figured their children were less likely to see war themselves if they went to Canada rather than the USA.

And here we are.

Three generations in, the coal shoveller’s progeny are all well-established and productive citizens.

As are the third generation of the extended family on both sides of the family, on both sides of the Canada-US border.

In fact, a startling percentage of the 3rd generation seems to be enrolled in PhD programs in one thing or another.

And that, in a nutshell, is why I’m in favour of generous immigration policies.

That said, there are reasons to quibble with our current immigration regimen.

First and foremost among the quibbles; when there’s not enough affordable housing to go around for the people who already live here, what is the impact of importing ever-higher numbers of immigrants without any policies to address the acute housing crisis these people will be facing?

This policy of not having a housing policy is guaranteed to stoke resentment against immigrants.

Maybe that’s the plan.

Flooding the country with immigrants while providing no housing is a great way to stoke anti-immigrant sentiment.

The people devising these plans are keen on keeping working folks divided. 

As long as the mice are at each other's throats they'll never make common cause against the fat cats.