FROM COLLAR TO OVERALLS

Shannon News, 24 October 1923, Page 1

FROM COLLAR TO OVERALLS

CLERKS TAKING UP TRADES

AMERICA'S GREAT 'MOVEMENT. America has found that one of the results of the war has been a great shift, of what may be called whitecollair workers into the technical trades. ' The world needs goods more urgently than clerical work, and so in America —and, to a certain extent in other countries—there has been (a) unemployment among clerical workers, (b) a shortage of labour- in the technical trades, and (c) a transfer of thousands W men from the class (a) to class (b). " WAGE-SDAVES" BETTER PAID. This great migration, though not confined to America, has been more, marked there than anywhere else. In the United States, as been pointed out by many writers, including James- H. Collins, in " Th e Saturday Evening Post," "the white-collar workers have begun a nation-wide hike into the realms of the wage-slave Clerks are dropping the loose-leal ledger for the electrician's kit and leaving the adding machine for the motor-truck. The white collar ana silk shirt are being replaced by khaki and overalls, and instead of the salary envelope with its 25 to 30 dollars a week, are drawing a pay envelope fattened by wages of eight, ten or even more, dollars a day."

Many factors help to account for this peaceful revolution. Public services—roads, telephones telegraph lines, bridge's and so on—are expanding with marvellous rapidity, thus giving rise to a demand not only for an increased supply of labour, but for all sorts of mechanical apparatus. There is an acute housing shortage, and consequently a boom m building. And automobiles are being turned out in record numbers, the total for March reaching the colossal figure of 346,383.. The railways alone will buy this year equipment having an estimated value of 1,000,000,000 dollars.

DEMAND FOR MECHANICS The result of all this has been a vast and unsatisfied demand for mechanics and a corresponding increas* in wages. And as there is widespread unemployment among clerical workers, it is not surprising that many have cast away the clerk's social superiority and professional dress—riot very useful assets when a family has to be kept—in exchange for overalls and a thicker pay envelope As clerks or bookkeepers they earned fo or £6 a week. As electricians or plumbers they earn twice as much Mr. Collins, in the article already referred to, mentions the case of a plasterer who, though-over 70, wem» straight to a job at 16 dollars (over £3) a day. "We are teaching trades to men who have been working at white-col-lar jobs," said the principal of a technical school in New York. They range all the way from young clerks to a w y « C *f S ° f salesmen and managers. We find building and automotive trades in greatest demand—automobile mechanics, tyre vulcanising and repairing, automobile electrical equipment, radio, electrical , installation,' carpentering, plumbing, welding and so forth. We have 28 classes in autom^dmg^ 11 * 8 and a d ° Zen Classes

HIGHER PAY, MORE FREEDOM For this great shift there are several reasons. First there is widespread unemployment among clerical workers in America. The ' unemployed must either find some new occupation or starve. Secondly, even when work is continuous, the average clerical worker makes far less than the average skilled mechanic—perhaps not more than half as much. The white collar and sense of dignity which a clerical position gives, count for something, but, in the opinion of a good many Americans, it is scarcely worth £5 or £6 a week. Thirdly,, it is just beginning to be realised that the good mechanic enjoys a freedom and independence which the clerk or bookkeeper can never hope for. Ordinarily, the clerical worker's services are valued by his employer according to his experience and length of service. He knows that if he leaves that employer his experience may not be of much use else-, where, and so he is tied down to the job he already has. The skilled mechanic is under no such disadvantage. Everywhere good men are in demand, and so they can afford to be independent.

MECHANICS' HIGHER STATUS. What will be the social result of this abandonment of the white collar? The first will be a rise in the status of the mechanic. For generations it has been the custom to regard the "brain-worker" as being superior to the manual worker, even though the latter received twice as much pay. But this is the mechanical age, and it is beginning to be recognised that there is nothing essentially undignified in the use of tools,/ just as there is nothing essentially uplifting in pushing a pen. ; Thus the craftsman is getting back to the position he occupied while the craft guilds flourished in the Middle Ages before the Industrial Revolution reduced millions

of toilers to the positio'n of mere attendants upon machines. In the long run the clerical workers will also benefit, for it is quite certain that if enough of them drop their pens for the brush and chisel, the reult will be a keener demand for clerks, and a rise in their status and pay.