Work in America. A Comparison of Industrial and Municipal Worker Attitudes
| Date | 01 February 1980 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/eb054945 |
| Published date | 01 February 1980 |
| Pages | 6-10 |
| Author | Neal Herrick |
| Subject Matter | HR & organizational behaviour |
Work in America
A Comparison of Industrial and
Municipal Worker Attitudes
by Neal Herrick
Lecturer, Department of Management, University of Arizona
Introduction
This is a study of factory workers in a large midwest-
ern industrial city and municipal workers in a town of
less than 70 thousand inhabitants.
The Places
Drive northeast from the state capitol (Columbus) over
the central Ohio flatlands and, in three hours or there-
abouts, signs of industry begin to appear on either side
of Interstate 77. Exit 1-77 and you are within a mile of
the factory. Then drive past homes, neighbourhood bars
and a deserted factory building. Pull into the parking
lot on the south side of the street and you have arrived
at the factory where the 370 or so industrial workers of
this study spend their work days or nights.
Drive west from Columbus toward Indianapolis over
more central Ohio flatlands. Take a right off 1-70 on
Route 40, after about 45 minutes drive past some farms
and antique shops and then through about three miles of
fast-food stores, petrol stations and motels. Within an
hour of having left Columbus, you can park across
the street from City Hall in Springfield, Ohio, a pleasant
little spread-out city with an abundance of trees and
older buildings. Many of the people who work in Spring-
field live in the surrounding countryside. Some operate
farms in their spare time. There is a lake for swim-
ming and fishing over on the east side. The 400 or so
people who provide the water, treat the sewage, main-
tain the streets, pick up the refuse, run the parks and
—in general—make the city liveable for its 68,000 or
so inhabitants, are the municipal workers of this study.
The People
The factory has a stable employee population with one-
half of the workers having been employed for ten years
or more. Most (91 per cent) consider themselves to be
the major wage earners in their families and 60 per
cent make $10,000 or more a year. Ninety-one per cent
are male and 19 per cent are from minority groups.
They are an older group of people with 58 per cent
being over 40 years of age. Sixty-three per cent have a
high school diploma or better with 34 per cent having
at least some college. They are primarily midwestern
big city people with 59 per cent having been brought up
in the midwest and 54 per cent having been brought
up in a large city. The municipal employees have not
been with their employer as long, number more fe-
males (18 per cent), fewer primary wage earners (82 per
cent) and make less money (only 37 per cent make
$10,000 or more). The municipal workforce has about
the same percentage of minorities (18 per cent as com-
pared to 19 per cent for the factory) and is slightly
older. The respect in which the two groups are most
different is this: 55 per cent of the factory workers were
brought up in a large city compared to only 7 per cent
of the municipal employees.
The Jobs
Plant 1 of our factory's two plants is basically a job-
shop operation with many machine operators, lathe
operators and inspectors. Across the street in Plant
2 the product is made in large part by assemblers with
somewhat lower levels of skill. The assembly is a belt
operation. Seventy-five per cent of the employees are
hourly and 25 per cent are salaried. Eighty-two per
cent are on the day shift and 17 per cent are on the
night shift. There are trees and some grass outside
the plant. If you drive past at lunch time on a nice
day, you will see people sitting out on the grass and on
the steps eating and talking.
Do factory workers have a
more negative view of their
jobs than municipal workers?
The municipal workers' jobs are quite different. Many
of them are on the move: not chained to any one loca-
tion but travelling around the city on refuse trucks,
street cleaning equipment and parks maintenance
vehicles. These mobile employees clean storm sewers,
repair streets, read meters and otherwise move about
the City of Springfield keeping it functioning. In addi-
tion, a large number of municipal employees are white
collar office workers in City Hall or have other fixed
places of employment such as the water treatment or
the waste water plant. Most city employees either travel
about the city in the course of their work or are out-
stationed in small groups. Many of these jobs allow you
to sit down on the lawn under a tree when lunch time
comes—perhaps even stretch out and take a nap. Ninety-
five per cent of these municipal employees work in the
daytime.
How the People see their Jobs
The opinions of the factory workers regarding their
working environment are generally more negative than
those of the Springfield municipal workers.
We measured workers' opinions of the quality of
their working environment by asking them questions
about the extent to which they saw their working con-
ditions as secure, fair, providing them with feeling of
personal identity and allowing for group participation.
6 Employee Relations 2,2 1980
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