Mike Rowe responded to a reader who talked negatively about blue collar workers on Facebook this week, and he held nothing back.
Someone wrote to Rowe:
I always see these articles saying there is a shortage of construction trade workers, but everywhere I go I see hundreds of them unemployed. There is definitely no shortage of these workers, there’s just a shortage of people willing to work for sub-par poverty wages. That’s why these Mike Rowe types want to flood the labor market. Don’t believe any of that shit if you read it.
Rowe’s long response is a barn-burner, and he tore apart the reader’s negativity on construction and trade work.
“Clearly, you and I disagree. Yes – my personal experiences have informed my opinion, just as yours have. But unlike you, I’ve touched the whole elephant. I’ve been to every state multiple times, spoken directly to hundreds of employers, and put my money where my mouth is. And my conclusion is this – while the work is often demanding, and the conditions sometimes inhospitable, the opportunities in the skilled trades have never been better,” Rowe wrote. “I know hundreds of people who began by mastering a trade, and went on to prosper.” (RELATED: Mike Rowe’s Thoughts On The Florida Shooting Are The Best You Will Hear From Anyone)
He concludes, “Obviously, my desire to share stories of success doesn’t make me right, any more than your desire to share stories of failure makes you wrong.”
“But it does give me permission to ask – respectfully and in all seriousness – what is it you hope to accomplish by telling people that opportunity is dead? In other words, what is YOUR agenda?”