I hate how he had a show promising working- class stories that turned out to just feature small business tyrants and land owners. Citations Needed had a good episode about his grift.
To these types, small business owners ARE the working class. Actual workers don’t even register as people to them, they see us as disposable suckers who they tricked into making them rich.
That’s why you see all this push for everyone to become an individual small business owner. In a post-labor world, only the people lucky enough to have millions to start a business and beat the odds of said business failing, or those who inherited their business have any “right” to even exist.
Source: I’ve seen the inside of some of these business types. Although they don’t use the language (and I’m not sure if they intentionally understand it this way), but these business types have tons of class solidarity and practically have a reverse-engineered Marxist worldview. This is why we see the rise of networking, porks genuinely want to live in a world where only their fellow porks exist so networking is then seeing you as a friend and giving you permission to have an income out of the kindness of their hearts.
It was kind of inevitable given the premise. If you’re gonna secure the permission to film people doing “dirty jobs” it means going through the business owner and of course they’ll want to look good in the final product.
I’m much more annoyed by an opera singer turned QVC host turned reality TV host lecturing people on the values of taking on labor that wrecks your body. Once again, reactionaries lionize lifestyle and career choices they themselves wouldn’t touch with a hundred foot pole.
“I write songs for the people who do jobs in the towns that id never move to.” - bo Burnham, country song
Mike is such a fucking bootlicker. I’m almost ashamed that I used to watch Dirty Jobs because I thought he was pro-worker’s rights for some fucking reason.
I can do a free financial class for kids. Here:
“Whatever wage your future bosses offer you, they are making more in profit than they’ll ever pay you. As long as there is an owner, including shareholders, you are being robbed of value you created.”
Plant that little gem in their brains and see if anything happens in 20 years
How did you come up Safety Third?
It started fifteen years ago in The Dirty Jobs Mudroom – where I used to converse online with fans of Dirty Jobs. Somebody there asked me if I thought safety was really “first,” and I said, “of course not.” Specifically, I wrote this: “No company in the history of the world has ever put the business of safety before the business of making money, and no employee has ever reported to work for the primary purpose of being safe. Anyone who tells you otherwise is selling something.” Someone then asked me, “If safety isn’t first, then what is?” To which I replied, “Safety is too important to rank, but that doesn’t mean its first. ‘Safety Always’ would be a more sensible slogan, but I guess if I had to rank it, I’d put the desire to be safe after ‘the need to make money,’ and ‘the willingness to assume risk.’ In other words, ‘Safety Third.’”
This is from Mike Rowe’s website. His slogan is “Safety Third”. He plainly says that a business owner’s profits and the willingness for workers to take risks is more important than worker safety. That’s his slogan. Absolute ghoul.
Rowe takes what should be seen as a poignant contradiction in the workplace (and one that can be used to agitate) and instead goes “Hmm well the boss wants to make money and the worker seems to be willing to change falling off scaffolding. This is perfectly equal and good and nothing more to see here.”
There’s a small kernel of truth in what he’s saying, and he doesn’t touch on it because the implications are not good for a boot licker like him. Construction workers are not “willing to take risks” , they are
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Propagandised to see safety as a time wasting useless function
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Demoralised by what safety measures are in place because most exist to punish workers on the ground for mistakes and not reward continual success
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Disciplined by deadlines, piecework, their bosses to go as fast as possible.
Ironically enough the same people on site that tell everyone to be as safe as possible are also the same ones pushing improbable finish dates for work, workers see this hypocrisy and understand that, without some kind of mass backing them, if they are going to be firm on workplace rules there’s a good chance they’re next when layoffs come around.
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Mike is an illiterate, it seems, because unions (so, the will of the workers collectively) in dangerous industries have long said “safety first” as a slogan at their jobs. They do this because the workers fucking care about safety. No one wants to be maimed and unable to enjoy life/continue working.
Mike is literally thinking (being generous there) of this in 1840s industrialist mindset. I wonder how he feels about age laws for labor making child labor illegal or highly restricted… oh he already gave an opinion there. He’s pro child murder. What about the (still too long) 8 hour standard work day or 40 hour week in the US? Hey why not just roll back to 14 hours, 6 days a week HALF DAY on Sunday- thank you, boss! The kids can work, everyone in the household will work, and you’ll just eventually die on the floor of some hellhole decades before a natural death would’ve occurred.
Mike won’t care. History of labor doesn’t exist to these types of dumbasses. Anti-labor, anti-humanity, pro-capitalist, pieces of dogshit.
MikeRoweWorks Foundation CEO Mike Rowe
Mike Rowe of MikeRowe Fame gives you his MikeRowe Opinion
His MikeRowpinion
