White Collar Worker

 

broad occupational grouping of workers engaged in nonmanual labor; frequently contrasted with blue-collar (manual) employees. American in origin, the term has close analogues in other industrial countries. Managers, salaried professionals, office workers, sales personnel, and proprietors are generally included in the category. Professionals and managers, however, are occasionally excluded. Since World War II the number of white-collar workers in the U.S. labor force has increased dramatically. Today they account for almost 50% of the labor force, outnumbering blue-collar workers by approximately 11 million persons. There is considerable difference of opinion concerning the political and social attitudes of white-collar workers. Some authorities, such as C. Wright Mills, author of White Collar (1951), contend that members of the group identify with the institutions for which they work and hence tend toward political conservatism. Others, pointing to white-collar unions such as the American Federation of Teachers and the Distributive Workers of America, claim that white-collar workers tend to identify with manual laborers and others who do not own the means of production.

White-collar worker is an idiom referring to a salaried professional or a person whose job is clerical in nature, as opposed to a blue-collar worker whose job is more in line with manual labor. White-collar work is an informal term as there is no accepted enumeration of white-collar jobs to the extent that it is typically defined as any job that is not blue-collar.

History

Origin of the Term

The term 'white-collar' derives from the clerical collar of a priest's clothing. Prior to the rise of separate professional and mercantile classes, priests not only performed ecclesiastical duties, but also served as physicians, lawyers, scribes, and accountants: often, they were the only literate members of a society..

Demographics

The proportion of white collar workers steadily increased from 17% of employees in 1900 to 59.4% of employees having white-collar jobs in 1998. This is likely due to the recent technological revolution, and changes in the economic structure of the United States.

Formerly a minority in the agrarian and early industrial societies, they have become a majority in industrialized countries. The recent technological revolution has created disproportionately more desk jobs, and lessened the number of employees doing manual work in factories. Generally, the pay rate is higher among white-collar workers, although many of the "white-collar" workers are not necessarily upper-middle class or of privilege as the term once implied. For example, many jobs in the ever growing service sector have a high dress code despite their low pay, whereas ironically, many skilled manual trades-people earn comfortable middle-class salaries, although the jobs may be increasingly scarce.

Also, an increasing number of companies do not have any blue-collar workers because they do not physically manufacture anything within their home country, but instead have an entire hierarchy of white-collar desk workers who mostly dress the same.^{[citation needed]} In this type of corporate environment, the ranking is less signified by the clothing, but may be strikingly apparent by the quality of the work space, the responsibilities delegated, the privileges granted, and by the salary itself.

In recent times workers have had varying degrees of latitude about their choice of dress. Dress codes can range from relaxed - with employees allowed to wear jeans and street clothes — up to traditional office attire. Many companies today operate in a business casual environment — where employees are required to wear dress pants (business trousers) or skirts and a shirt with a collar. Because of this, not all what would be called white-collar workers in fact wear the traditional white shirt and tie.

As an example of workspace contrast, the higher ranking executives may have large corner offices with impressive views and expensive furnishings, where the lesser ranked desk clerks may share small, windowless cubicles with plain utilitarian furniture. As an example of the differing responsibilities, the higher ranked worker will usually have a more broad and fundamental responsibility in the company whereas the subordinates will be delegated more specific, and limited tasks. The cases of differing privilege and salary speak for themselves.

At some companies, the "white-collar employees" also on occasion perform "blue-collar" tasks (or vice versa), and even change their clothing to perform the distinctive roles, i.e., dressing up or dressing down as the case requires. This is common in the food service industry. An example would be a manager at a restaurant who may wear more formal clothing than lower-ranked employees, yet still sometimes assist with cooking food or taking customers' orders. Employees of event-catering companies often wear formal clothing when serving food.

As salaried employees, white-collar workers are sometimes members of white-collar labor unions and they can resort to strike action to settle grievances with their employers, when collective bargaining fails. This is far more the case in Europe than in the United States, where less than 10 percent of all private sector employees are union members. White-collar workers have a reputation for being skeptical or opposed to unions, and tend to see their advancement in work as tied to their reaching corporate goals rather than in union membership.

The American sociologistC. Wright Mills conducted a major study of the white-collar workers in White Collar-The American Middle Class (1951). He claimed that alienation among the white-collar workers was high, because they were not only selling their time but also had to sell their personality with a "smile on their faces", referring to insurance sales people like his own father.

See also

• aristocracy
• high culture
• six-figure income
• pink collar
• upper class
• white-collar crime
• salaryman
• gold-collar worker
• blue collar
• Grey collar
• C. Wright Mills

External links

• The White Collar Warrior: An On-Line Journal Dedicated To White Collar Rights (daily blog)

Social stratification : Social class
Bourgeoisie	Upper class	Ruling class	Nobility	White-collar
Petite bourgeoisie	Upper middle class	Creative class	Gentry	Blue-collar
Proletariat	Middle class	Working class	Nouveau riche/Parvenu	Pink-collar
Lumpenproletariat	Lower middle class	Lower class	Old Money	Gold-collar
Peasant/Serf	Slave class	Underclass		Classlessness
Social class in the United States
Upper class	Middle class	Lower class	Income	Educational attainment

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