By LEE BALLARD

Mike Rowe made a whole bunch of money with his TV show “Dirty Jobs” and as spokesman in Ford commercials. 

The show’s canceled, and now he’s focusing on something he really has a heart for:  raising the status of working people.  Specifically he wants to see millions more people trained in skilled trades, to claim the THREE MILLION jobs now going unfilled because there aren’t enough welders, electricians and the like.  He testified before a Senate committee to push for infrastructure spending that would open up even more jobs.   My hero. 

Now let’s look at the attitude of one of my old clients.  I had signed on to rename a financial services company.  In my interview with the CEO, he said he’d like me to interview some employees.  I said I could gather a group in the company cafeteria.  He snorted:  “I said employees, not Indians!” 

Not Indians.  I didn’t ─ and still don’t ─ understand his “Indians” metaphor, but his attitude was clear:  ordinary working people are unimportant, interchangeable, disposable.  I did the naming project, but under protest in my mind.

Of these two, Mike Rowe is right, and my client was wrong.  Right?  Yes, right.  Not theologically ─ that everybody’s equal in God’s eyes.  We all know that’s true.  And I don’t mean politically ─ that everybody should have the same chance in life. 

No, I’m speaking professionally.  It’s a simple matter of RESPECT.  Everybody should be respected for WHAT THEY DO, if they’re faithful in their profession.  Some of the smartest people I’ve ever known had very little education.  They know how to solve problems, figure things out.  I’ve had assistants who, with no training, had incredible insight into people and business strategy.  I’ve hired small-project building contractors who could face a problem they’d never seen before and bing! they’d devised something entirely new and wonderful, even doing calculations in their heads.  I’m in awe of people who restore cars and other things.  It’s possible that the smartest man in WNC might be riding on a utility truck.

By contrast, some highly paid colleagues over the years knew nothing but the narrow slice they’d learned in college and repeated over and over.  And they get the big bonuses ─ and, yes, the prestige.

Mike Rowe thinks people aren’t being trained in blue-collar trades because the work isn’t glamorous.  It’s like a self-image thing.  People see their work as their identity, and they don’t want to be a plumber.  I don’t know whether Mike’s idea is true or not, but I do know that a four-year college education isn’t for everybody.  I say, as Mike Rowe does, that more young people should seek out careers in skilled trades ─ and hopefully get the prestige they deserve from society. 

That brings us to community colleges and their intense effort nowadays to offer training in high-demand occupations.  It’s a fabulous vision for our day.  Our daughter completed the medical lab tech course at A-B Tech and has a terrific job, at several times minimum wage and with high job satisfaction.

Now…what I’m going to say next will shock and astound anybody who reads this column regularly.  Here it is: The Republican budget for 2013 does something really good.  It adds $32 million over two years for vocational and technical training, just the skills Mike Rowe wants to see people pursue.  They’re pressing community colleges to expand programs and make money available so more people can get this valuable training.  

The budget stinks to high heaven in many other areas, but in this area, (cough, wheeze) they’re dead center.  May Republicans see the good of this program and do more for ordinary working people.

•

Lee Ballard lives in Mars Hill.