The Labor Month in Review

Organization and Automation Among White-Collar Workers

THE SHARP GROWTH in the number of white-collar workers in the United States is paralleled by similar developments in the rest of the world. Whitecollar workers outnumber blue-collar workers in the United States, approach or have reached numerical superiority in other industrialized countries, and are disproportionately important in the economies of some developing countries.

At the 15th triennial congress of the International Federation of Commercial, Clerical, and Technical Workers (FIET), several papers analyzed trade union activity among white-collar workers and some of the effects of automation upon their jobs. Convening in Washington, D.C., in late 1967, the FIET congress was the first held in the Western Hemisphere.

The congress' justifiable pride at recent gains in affiliated unions and membership was offset by an undercurrent of frustration over the large proportion of unorganized white-collar workers. Delegates from almost 40 countries heard diagnoses of why relatively few white-collar workers are now organized and prescriptions for a better performance in the future. The other key topic was automation. This revealed that the congress was aware that income levels could be held down by the constant revision of job requirements made necessary by automation in stores and offices.

The First Five Million. Through its affiliates, the FIET has been growing by about a million members between recent congresses. From about 2 million members for whom fees were paid in 1958, the federation grew to almost 3 million in 1961, nearly 4 million in 1964, and in 1967, the year of the 15th congress, to over 5 million. Located in 62 countries of the non-Communist world, affiliated

unions totaled 112 in 1967, with about a third of them in Europe. About half of the affiliated membership was in Europe, birthplace of the federation, and most of the remainder in North and South America. Only a 10th of the membership was in Asia, Africa, and Oceania.

Ancestry of the FIET has been traced to a loose federation was sundered by each World War and Italian commercial unions that met in 1904. They came together to exchange views and cooperate in advancing the cause of nonmanual workers. The federation was sundered by each World War and had to be reestablished both times. It remained a European operation until after the Second World War when affiliated unions in the Americas, Asia, Africa, and Oceania were added.

At this congress, Erich Kissel, general secretary of the FIET, extolled the growth in membership that had moved the FIET into a second-place tie among international trade union secretariats. But he pointed out that there are an estimated 70 million nonmanual workers who lack trade union protection. This group is particularly large in the United States, despite recent sharp membership gains among North American white-collar unions. James Suffridge, president of the Retail Clerks and current president of the FIET, estimated that half of U.S. nonfarm manual workers are organized, compared with only about a seventh of nonmanual workers. (In addition to the Retail Clerks, U.S. affiliates of the FIET are the Building Service Employees, Insurance Workers, Office and Professional Employees, and Retail, Wholesale, and Department Store Workers.)

A World to Win. Because the proportion of the blue-collar workers is shrinking relatively, the delegates were told by Erich Kissel that unions need to organize more white-collar workers if organized labor is to continue to play its proper role in safeguarding worker standards and preserving political freedom. Trade unions were exhorted to develop their techniques to cope with the increasing number of white-collar jobs and the constant and often sudden revision of those jobs by automation.

In a series of papers and presentations, the FIET congress pondered why more white-collar workers do not belong to unions. Howard Coughlin, president of the Office and Professional Employees Union, saw the principal block to orga

nizing U.S. white-collar workers as being their traditional identification with management. But that identification is being eroded by the constant alteration of white-collar jobs by automation. Since management makes the automation decisions, workers see union organization as a means of protecting jobs they are trained to do, or assuring they get opportunities at the new jobs. Mr. Coughlin also indicated that more white-collar workers might join a union as a result of successful organizing among professional groups such as airline pilots and teachers. On the negative side, however, he pointed to the recent tight job market, which permits some white-collar workers to improve their positions individually.

Romantic Illusion. In his paper, Rolf Spaethen (a German trade unionist who was unable to attend the congress), argued that the main hindrance to organizing white-collar workers in his country lay in their historical expectation to become self-employed. "For the vast majority of [these] workers, [self-employment] remained a mere romantic illusion." As they recognize that they will remain workers just like their blue-collar counterparts, they will be more willing to organize to secure better wage and working conditions, according to Spaethen.

The mental attitudes of white-collar workers were emphasized as the most serious hindrance to organization, but deficiencies in organizational methods were not overlooked. Mr. Coughlin maintained that it was a mistake to attempt to organize white-collar and blue-collar workers in the same union because their interests were different.

General Secretary Kissel held that white-collar workers can best be organized by emphasizing the promotions that will flow from training secured by the unions as opposed to the blue-collar method of emphasizing the increased wages obtainable by the union in the same or similar jobs.

Participants from several other countries added their prescriptions on how to improve white-collar organization. The variety of views implied that no one had a comprehensive picture of what to do, although there was broad agreement that special problems existed. The only paper that contained the opinion that organizing nonmanual workers in a particular country was no more troublesome than organizing other workers was that of Moshe Bar-Tal of Israel. The organizational ease in that country resulted from an almost overnight de

velopment of the Israeli economy that did not permit cleavages in the attitudes of manual and nonmanual workers toward trade unions. The considerable social and economic power of the Histadrut labor federation, which has over fourfifths of workers organized, was also important.

There are various objective factors peculiar to each country, which inhibit white-collar organization. In the United States, for example, there is a high proportion of part-time and women workers, particularly in retail trade. These groups have proven more difficult to organize than full-time men workers. According to Thomas Cynog-Jones of Great Britain, the heavy complement of small family-operated stores, in that country and Europe, hinders both organization and automation. In developing countries, small establishments and pools of unemployed or underemployed workers lower prospects for organizing.

The Tight White Collar. In his paper, Benjamin Seligman of the University of Massachusetts forecast that increasing automation and job rationalization will force white-collar workers to view themselves apart from the management team. Reporting on research in a limited number of firms, he indicated that some clerical jobs have undergone a sea change or vanished under the wave of automation and job streamlining in offices, warehouses, and some retail stores. "The fit of the white collar is changing," he argued, “and . . . for many a nonmanual worker it promises to become increasingly tight as machines continue to replace them."

Annadore Bell, a German trade unionist, reported that the Dutch Research Center found a steep rise in computer use in Europe and forecast an even steeper climb by 1975. She expressed concern at this prospect because "redundancies" were already occurring among some white-collar workers in Germany. Britain's Cynog-Jones agreed with this forecast in his paper, but noted that economic dominance by small shops-in contrast to the abundance of large firms in the United States would prevent wholesale introduction of computers for a considerable time. For him, the introduction of self-service has proved more revolutionary than the use of the computer thus far, in that it has reduced jobs and opened the way for future automation and mechanization. The British expert reported that success with completely automated food stores has been uneven in Europe.

VERA C. PERRELLA*

THE CONTINUING CHANGE of greatest effect, as well as greatest magnitude, in labor force participation is among married women. The twentieth century ushered in the change, but it continues at an accelerated rate through the post-World War II years. In 1947, 1 out of 5 married women worked; today, 20 years later, more than 1 out of 3 is in the labor force.1 Concurrently, the rates for men and for other women (single, widowed, divorced, or separated) have either decreased or remained about the same, so that the configuration of the total labor force as well as of the female labor force has altered significantly. As a result of these changes, married women now constitute 20 percent of all civilian workers 14 years old and over, compared with 11 percent in 1947. (See chart.) Among women workers, majority status has shifted to the married group; in 1947 married women were 41 percent of working women; today, they are 57 percent.

The direction and magnitude of other labor force developments during the years since 1947 have undoubtedly been influenced by and have interacted with those among married women. The effect of the increase in the women's labor force rate is perhaps most sharply and simply illustrated, however, by computing a current overall labor force participation rate assuming that the married women's rate had remained unchanged from its 1947 level while the rates for men and other women are accepted at their current levels. Actually, the overall labor force rate has remained fairly steady over the 20-year period, around 56 percent, but the rate has decreased by several percentage points for single women and for men younger than age 20 and older than 54, as youths

stay in school longer and older men retire earlier. Had the rate for married women not risen, the current overall labor force participation rate would be 5 percentage points lower than in 1947 and the number of married women working would be 8.6 million at most, instead of the 16 million it is at present. Thus this dramatic change in participation rates is responsible for 7.4 million. workers-one-tenth of the total current labor

force.

Dynamics of Change

That the rate for married women rose is the result of many forces operating over time, forces which represent a revolution in social, cultural, and techno-economic areas of our lives.

The industrial revolution and the changeover from a rural to an urban society, the campaign for women's rights, the work experience gained by millions of women during the war when there was a shortage of male workers, the shift away from physical and manual labor to lighter work in the factories, the growth in white-collar jobs, and a rate of economic growth sufficient to generate an increasing number of jobs have all contributed to our almost matter-of-course acceptance of the presence of women in the labor force.

*Of the Division of Labor Force Studies, Bureau of Labor Statistics.

1 Most of the data in this report are based on information from supplementary questions in the monthly survey of the labor force conducted in March of each year for the Bureau of Labor Statistics by the Bureau of the Census through its Current Population Survey. Data presented here relate to the population 14 years old and over, including inmates of institutions and those members of the Armed Forces living off post or with their families on post. In this report, all references to women are to married women, husband present, unless otherwise indicated.