I am not offended when people don’t know what a pipe fitter does, even though in my world, pipe fitting is considered a prime and indispensable craft. What depresses and infuriates me is the astonishing number of people who look through the barbed-wire fences of our industrial plants and choose to see only machines. The ignorance about the kind of work people like myself do is not just comical. It is willful and destructive.

This attitude was never more apparent than in some of the published letters responding to a MY TURN essay by a Wisconsin construction worker a few years ago. In the column he proposed, very tongue-in-cheek, that the year be designated “The Year of the Blue-Collar Guy.” In a few serious asides, the writer reminded us that regular guys and gals get hurt occasionally and even fall off a roof once in a while. Back came the letters from egocentric Yuppies. One even asked, “Who asked you to fall off the roof?”

That question’s author should be forced to ask it repeatedly in a crowded steel-mill bar. For those who want to know, I’ll tell you who asks. You do–all of you–every minute of every day. When you turn on a light, buy some lumber or fill up the car, you ask countless workers to risk life and limb to keep the powerhouse running, fell the tree and refine the gasoline. There are jobs in the business world that must be performed or the entire system will cease to function. I assure you that many of these occupations are hazardous by definition. It is repugnant to suggest that there is a choice about becoming a casualty.

Respect in this country is based on class. The faster we race toward a two-tiered society, the more we champion the fantasy that it is classless. I challenge anyone who believes this notion to spend some time in an oil refinery. You will soon discover that lives of workers are considered less valuable and not as noteworthy as those of our corporate elite.

This disrespect is evident in many ways. Of all the people I’ve known who have been killed on the job, some quite horribly, only one death was reported in the media. That accident occurred on a high-rise building in downtown Chicago, and newspaper reporters rushed to the scene. After all, the office workers in the buildings next door were curious about the commotion.

Industrial facilities don’t get much attention from the media until an explosion turns them into good television. Reporters turn into upper-middle-class pussycats when they go after stories behind the barbed-wire fences. If a small flash fire snuffs out a life or a pipe falls and crushes vertebrae, the accidents rarely get much public attention. If thousands of lives are shortened by the toxic chemical soup present in every factory, it is the workers themselves who have to prove that conditions are harmful.

When they’re not in casual denial about on-the-job accidents, the media generally ignore the working stiff’s views altogether. We’ve all read magazine stories with titles like “Generation X–Who Are These Yardbirds?” or “Baby Boomers: Endless Love/ Hate.” These kinds of articles offer insights from a purported cross section of the group in question. The people who are quoted, though, are invariably a “usual suspects” list the writers feel comfortable with: artists, marketing gurus, Wall Street types and other assorted “professionals.” God forbid that readers be subjected to the thoughts of an electrician, an autoworker or a nurse’s aide.

Then there’s the subject of money. We’ve spent the last 20 years transferring more wealth to the already affluent. That trend became a story only when it was a fait accompli. It didn’t seem to bother anyone when labor lawyers and right-wingers conspired, with government acquiescence, to destroy unions during the ’80s–even though this action directly and indirectly depressed the wages of many Americans. It’s easy to deny a living wage and decent conditions to people about whom we know so little.

I do not dislike corporate executives or journalists. My local union–more than a century old–has had a great relationship with our contractors, public utilities, the city and the local media. What angers me is the notion that it’s acceptable to reward upper-income professionals disproportionately to their contributions while denigrating working people to the point of invisibility.

We don’t bat an eye at CEOs and Hollywood producers making millions of dollars. At the same time, public officials, acting as corporate shills, run around the country denouncing proposals to raise the minimum wage. We live in a nation where it’s routine to deny countless Americans what they need so that we can continue to give a few what they merely want.

I’m not calling for understanding or sensitivity here. I’m delivering a warning. In similar periods in our history, when the quality of life for working stiffs was diminished to please unfettered business interests, we’ve had strikes, demonstrations and boycotts. These actions were necessary to support our interests, but they were disruptive to our social fabric. Why must we repeat this depressing process every 40 years or so?

In the wake of the economic and social train wreck called the 1980s, one of three things can happen. Perhaps American workers, both blue and white collar, will quietly accept a class-based society that enriches only the lucky few. Or perhaps we’ll revisit the 1930s, when violent street battles and sit-down strikes were the workers’ court of last resort. But a third option is my favorite: that we embrace our real patriotism and value each helping hand that shapes the nation. Whatever occurs will be our choice. It always has been.