WHO IS A WHITE‐COLLAR EMPLOYEE?*
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8543.1972.tb00591.x |
| Published date | 01 November 1972 |
| Author | George Sayers Bain,Robert Price |
| Date | 01 November 1972 |
WHO IS A WHITE-COLLAR EMPLOYEE?*
GEORGE SAYERS
BAINt
AND
ROBERT PRICES
INTRODUCTION
‘WHITE-COLLAR employee’ is
a
vague term. Its meaning differs between
countries, and even within a single country
it
often means one thing to
one person and something else to another. Indicative of the confusion
surrounding the term is the large number
of
synonyms which it has ac-
quired
:
‘salaried employee’, ‘office worker’, ‘non-manual worker’, and
‘blackcoated worker’.
As
mere words, these phrases are interchangeable; as
logical entities, they are not. For these various catchwords imply conflict-
ing theories or approaches which claim that ‘white-collar employees’ are
to be defined either by their method of payment, their place
of
work, the
nature of their work,
or
the type of dress they wear to work.
The purpose of this paper is to review and to evaluate the major theo-
ries and approaches which are implied by these catchwords and which
have been put forward in an attempt to define a ‘white-collar employee’.
The paper
is
not concerned with those writers who have merely listed a
number
of
occupations which they consider to be white-collar but who
have not given any theoretical justification for their ch0ice.l Nor
is
it
concerned with those writers who have dealt with the much broader
question
of
the white-collar employee’s position in the social stratification
system.a Rather, it concentrates on those writers who have attempted to
provide
a
logical and consistent theoretical basis
for
a
division
of
the
occupational spectrum into white-collar and manual categories. Although
these theories have been widely advanced in most countries, the academic
debate surrounding them has been predominantly European and, in
particular, German. Some of the debate has been published in English,
but most of it has not. Hence
a
supplementary purpose
of
this paper is to
bring the most significant contributions to the attention
of
an English-
speaking audience.
*
The authors are grateful to Roy Adam of the University
of
Wisconsin and Ross Martin
of
t
Deputy Director, S.S.R.C. Industrial Relations Research Unit, University
of
Warwick
3
Research Associate,
S.S.R.C.
Industrial Relations Research Unit, University
of
Warwick
La
Trobe
University for their helpful comments on earlier drafts
of
this
paper.
For
example,
see
G.
S.
Bain,
The
Growth
of
White-Collar
Unionism,
Clarendon
Press,
Oxford,
1970, p.
4
a
For
example, see Hans Speier, ‘The Salaried Employee in Modern Society’,
Social Research,
I, February 1934, pp.
1
1
1-33; F. D. Klingender,
The
Condition
ofclerical
Labour
in
Britain,
Martin
Lawrence, London, 1935; Lewis Corey,
Ihe
Crisis
of
the
Middle
Class,
Covici Friede, New York,
1935; C. Wright Mills,
White
Collar,
Oxford University Press, New York, 1951; Michel Crozier,
The
World
of the
O&e
Worker,
University
of
Chicago Press, Chicago, 1971
;
and David Lockwood,
The Blackcoaled Worker,
Allen
and Unwin, London, 1958
325
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