blue-collar worker

Examples of blue-collar worker in the following topics:

• Industrial Work

  • In common parlance, these people are often referred to as blue-collar workers.
  • Often, blue-collar workers physically build or maintain something .
  • The term "blue collar" refers to the type of clothing often worn by industrial workers.
  • Some blue-collar workers have uniforms embroidered with either the business' name or the individual's name.
  • This clip from CNN shows the development of a new type of blue-collar worker in South Carolina.

• Social Class

  • The middle class is the broadest swath of society, consisting of professional workers, small business owners, and low-level managers.
  • These people are also referred to as "white collar workers. " The lower class consists of people who work wage jobs rather than salaried positions.
  • Referred to as "blue collar workers," the lower class has little economic security and includes both individuals working lower-paying positions and unemployed and/or homeless people.
  • In 2007, CEOs in the top American companies received an average salary of $10.5 million per year, 344 times the pay of the average worker.

• Class

  • For Marxists, class antagonism is rooted in the situation that control over social production necessarily entails control over the class which produces goods—in capitalism this is the domination and exploitation of workers by owners of capital.
  • Contemporary sociological concepts of social class often assume three general categories: a very wealthy and powerful upper class that owns and controls the means of production; a middle class of professional or salaried workers, small business owners, and low-level managers; and a lower class, who rely on hourly wages for their livelihood.
  • Middle class workers are sometimes called white-collar workers.
  • The lower or working class is sometimes separated into those who are employed as wage or hourly workers, and an underclass—those who are long-term unemployed and/or homeless, especially those receiving welfare from the state.
  • Members of the working class are sometimes called blue-collar workers.

• Industrial Conflict

  • Industrial sociology examines the effects of industrial organization on workers, and the conflicts that can result.
  • Braverman demonstrated several mechanisms of control in both the factory blue collar and clerical white collar labor force.
  • Trade union organizations may be composed of individual workers, professionals, past workers, students, apprentices and/or the unemployed .
  • Industrial unionism is a labor union organizing method through which all workers in the same industry are organized into the same union—regardless of skill or trade—thus giving workers in one industry, or in all industries, more leverage in bargaining and in strike situations.
  • In addition to advocating for worker rights, unions may also engage in broader political or social struggle.

• Inequalities of Work

  • This explanation of the pay gap invokes the notion of the pink-collar worker.
  • A "pink-collar worker" is a term for designating the types of jobs in the service industry that are considered to be stereotypically female, such as working as a waitress, nurse, teacher, or secretary.
  • The term attempts to distinguish this type of work from blue-collar and white-collar work.
  • The above graph shows the average earnings of workers by education and sex.

• Job Discrimination

  • This explanation of the pay gap invokes the notion of the pink-collar worker.
  • A pink-collar worker is a term for designating the types of jobs in the service industry that are considered to be stereotypically female, such as working as a waitress, nurse, teacher or secretary.
  • The term attempts to distinguish this type of work from blue-collar and white-collar work.

• The Working Class

  • Those in the working class are commonly employed in low-skilled occupations, including clerical and retail positions and blue collar or manual labor occupations.
  • Low-level, white-collar employees are sometimes included in this class, such as secretaries and call center employees.
  • Class War: Workers battle with the police during the Minneapolis Teamsters Strike of 1934.

• White-Collar Crime

  • White-collar crime is a financially motivated, nonviolent crime committed for illegal monetary gain.
  • White-collar crime is a financially motivated, nonviolent crime committed for illegal monetary gain.
  • White-collar crime, is similar to corporate crime, because white-collar employees are more likely to commit fraud, bribery, ponzi schemes, insider trading, embezzlement, cyber crime, copyright infringement, money laundering, identity theft, and forgery .
  • The term "white-collar crime" was coined in 1939 by Edwin Sutherland, who defined it as a "crime committed by a person of respectability and high social status in the course of his occupation" in a speech entitled "The White Collar Criminal" delivered to the American Sociological Society.
  • Much of Sutherland's work was to separate and define the differences in blue-collar street crimes such as arson, burglary, theft, assault, rape, and vandalism, which are often blamed on psychological, associational, and structural factors.

• The Importance of Paid and Unpaid Work

  • Examples of unpaid workers include members of a family or cooperative; conscripts or forced labor; volunteer workers who work for charity or amusement; students who take intern positions as work experience; or conventional workers who are not paid because their enterprise is short of money.
  • Workers may be paid in a variety of ways, most commonly hourly wages or salaries.
  • Unpaid workers work without pay.
  • An internship is a system of on-the-job training for white-collar and professional careers.
  • Though unpaid, this domestic work is crucial to the economy: it keeps workers alive and healthy and helps raise new generations of workers to keep the paid economy running.

• Education and the Global Perspective

  • The emergence of secondary education in the United States did not occur until 1910, when a rise in big business and technological advances in factories (for instance, the emergence of electrification) required skilled workers.
  • In order to meet new job requirements, high schools were created with curriculums focused on practical job skills that would prepare students for white- or blue-collar work.