The Practical Skills of Blue Collar Workers
The white-collar worker was a rarity a very few generations ago. Up to and through the industrial revolution, most workers were blue collar. Farmers, factory workers, tradesmen, truck drivers, train and ship personnel were all what we would consider blue collar workers. Bankers and their tellers, insurance salesmen, shop-keepers (maybe), administrators, doctors and lawyers were what most considered white collar jobs. Only in the larger cities were there a variety of white-collar clerks and accountants. Nearly everybody else had a close association with the blue-collar world. People, men in particular, expected to grow up to work with their hands. It was expected and it was respected.
A couple of generations ago, only the wealthy could afford to send their children to college. But, the child who didn't attain higher education always had a variety of jobs they could fall back on. Most rural folk perfected and used a variety of skills every day life, such as mechanics, welding, construction or farming. Most men, in particular, learned a basic understanding of plumbing and electrical wiring. Back in those days, people actually upended the small appliance that didn't work and took the screws out to repair it to full service. These basic skills could be built upon to learn nearly every trade in common demand. Every high school had shop class-it likely was mandatory for the boys, with home economics for the girls. Skills learned in these classes, and in the home or on the farm provided the basic practical skills necessary to parley into a career.
Because the work was hard physical labor in many cases, and because some of these jobs were poorly-paid and somewhat demeaning in many situations, many parents encouraged their children to "better themselves" through more education in the hopes they would have an easier life. With the advent of more jobs in the sciences and in computers, far more white-collar-type jobs were needed and funding for higher education was made available until even the less well-to-do could attend and gain higher skills. The view that white-collar jobs were "better" stuck. Human nature and the human brain has not changed dramatically in the past few generations however-not every child is college material.
With the advent of the global economy, trade agreements removed many of the blue-collar jobs nearly overnight. Within a generation, many communities have lost their main employment focus and have no jobs available for young people without a college education. Schools and parents have ceased teaching their children the practical physical skills necessary to build into a job in the trades and most schools no longer provide vocational opportunities for high school kids. The kid without an aptitude for engineering or math or the sciences quickly finds themselves shuttled through college and into a dead-end job in a clerical cubicle with no hope of advancement-and facing crushing college debt. Often, the college graduate is making far less than he or she would have made had they attended a trade school or an apprenticeship, doing a job that in truth didnt require the college education in the first place. Many would have been far happier had their life choices included the trades.
Our prejudices against working with one's hands have done a great dis-service to these young people even as industry decries the lack of skilled tool and die makers, machine maintenance people and other specialized trades. HVAC journeymen, pipefitters, cabinetmakers and shipwrights are in shortage supply. All pay relatively well-certainly better than the dead-end clerical jobs. All require the type of life-long-learned practical skills that so many of our children are lacking. These jobs would be far more satisfying and well-suited to many young people rather than the call-center jobs they are faced with.
Blue-collar jobs can be highly satisfying work for many young people. Those that need the more concrete rewards of a finished product they can see and touch are usually much happier with these types of jobs. Oddly, we don't seem to see artists or potters as blue-collar workers-ostensibly because of their elevated craftsmanship, but their skills are usually no more exemplary than those of a fine furniture maker or cabinet maker. Likewise, the white-collar worker without practical skills would be in dire straits without the mechanic or plumber to call when things go wrong. These jobs are easily as valuable to society as many white-collar jobs and deserve the respect of all of their customers.
Society, then, does all of its citizens a dis-service when it disrespects the value of the blue-collar worker. In truth, the blue-collar worker can usually get along far better without the white-collar worker than vice-versa. In times when the economy is in poor shape, the white-collar worker who loses his job often has a harder time finding work than the blue-collar worker with his more easily-transferred skills. In a catastrophe, society will be in less danger of a collapse with plenty of versatile blue-collar workers at the ready instead of mostly web designers or SEO specialists. So the over-inflated sense of self-importance held by so many white-collar workers when contemplating the lowly blue-collar job may be deflated at any time, given the right circumstances. Better we all understand there is value in work-all work. No job is much better than another, if you don't enjoy it.
