A while back Iblogged arguing that “hardhat”is a slur, and I’ve been second guessing ever since. It got me thinking of years ago when I worked for Laborers Local 1058, and of one particular day.

这是您锻炼屁股，等待并重复的一天。在匹兹堡以北65号公路的混凝土浇注日，我们的劳动者和水泥终结者很挑剔。卡车迟到了，克里特岛很汤。

“You’re makin it too wet!” yelled Bobby, a finisher, as he squinted at a splatter of cement the truck driver sent down the chute so Neal, a cement tester a bit older than me, could check the batch. Neal hustled, filling the test cylinders. Everyone stared at him impatiently. It was 90 degrees, with a thick, stupid, Steel Town humidity.

“Got his job cause his dad’s a whitehat,” muttered someone, I think it was Vann, a buff 40-something hard-charging laborer who I admired. Some guys grunted agreement, then glanced at me, though Vann was talkin about Neal. Yeah,I remembered, Got my job cause of my dad, who's a whitehat.

范恩很坚强，武器隆起，胡须小胡子。他站在臀部旁边的钢筋衬里部分旁边，双手放在臀部上。最后，我们可以重新上班。

妇女，带有反射背心和警棍，是坚果驾驶者。萨利（Sally）阻止了交通量，挥动了一辆卡车，当她在生锈的皮卡中喝了两杯醉酒时，开始向她尖叫。当她允许交通再次走时，醉汉向她扔了一瓶瓶子，后者坠落在她的脚下。然后他们实际上停下了卡车来诅咒她。范恩（Vann）和其他人跑来跑去，他跑了起来，跑了起来，咆哮着吠叫。

“一切都没事？”我问他，什么时候回来。

“夫妇混蛋……是的，看看我们是如何跑过去的？这个工会是一个兄弟情谊 - 您帮助您的兄弟或姐姐。”他说。

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我在Hardhat博客上收到了一封电子邮件，那个人说他自1980年代以来就听到了关于工作的术语。这让我认为也许我had在RT上工作时听到了。65.然后，在那天晚上离开健身房的时候，我看到一个家伙在附近的一个项目中停在了一辆Steamfitters Union卡车上。我问他“硬汉”。Steamfitter说，我不介意。但是，我问，你们互相打电话给对方。不，他说。

Aside from that summer nearly three decades back, all of my many years of trades work were nonunion. It occurred to me that maybe “hardhat” and “whitehat” are union words; which reminded of stratification within the trades, and that unions are blue-collar elite. When I was growing up, union jobs were passed down in families, and you had no chance at one if you weren’t kin. With Local 1065, I made $12.90 per hour, a good wage back when. These days in Pittsburgh, which President Obama has called a model for local economic make-overs, it’s common to see contractors hiring laborers for $10 hourly, or less.

直到大约一年左右，我仍然做了一些交易工作，并喜欢为一位每小时25美元的花园设计师工作。园艺是我的热情，工资是可观的，尤其是对于肉细胞制工作。尽管我有自己的几个花园，但我错过了现金的体力劳动，以及知识渊博的园丁的友情，但是我有并且有写作要做。

My childhood friend Tom, a former union insulator, now is a foreman for a moving company. Chatting with him the other day, he said his boss would soon have a week-long job near me, if I wanted extra cash. I asked how much it would pay, though I really had no interest in the job.

他说：“每小时至少12美元。”

I made more with 1065, nearly three decades back. And the fact is, $25 hourly is more than the hourly rate paid for stringers by some prominent local and international media for whom I’ve worked. So from where I sit, it’s hard not to see depression of wages across many sectors.

We have an economy based on a presumption of steady continuing growth, yet wages have been stagnant or declining for generations. And it’s gotten us recession after recession. So I say phooey to whitehat and hardhat and other labels. We need to do a better job of expanding the economy by spreading the wealth, regarding each other—union and nonunion—as brothers and sisters.