by Daniel Bell
TABLE 2-2
Sector Distribution of Employment by Goods and Services, 1968
Projected to 1980 (in thousands)
SOURCE: The U. S. Economy in 1980, Bureau of Labor Statistics Bulletin 1673 (1970). The data for 1968 and 1980 are from Table A-16, p. 49.
NOTE: The figures for 1980 assume a 3 percent unemployment. At a 4 percent unemployment, there would be a drop in the labor force of one million (i.e. from 99,600 to 98,600), and this loss is distributed between goods-producing (31,600 to 31,000) and service-producing (67,980 to 67,300) employment.
Figures are not always exact because of rounding.
TABLE 2-3
Sector Distribution of Employment by Goods
and Services Projected to 1980,
Distribution by Percentages
SOURCE: The U. S. Economy in 1980, Bureau
of Labor Statistics Bulletin 1673 (1970); conversion
of figures into percentages.
Government to most people signifies the federal government. But state and local agencies actually account for eight out of every ten workers employed by the government. The major reason has been the expansion of schooling both in numbers of children and in the amount of schooling and thus of the number of teachers employed. Today about 85 percent of all pupils complete high school as against 33 percent in 1947. Educational services have been the area of fastest growth in the country and comprised 50 percent of state and local governmental activities in 1968 (as measured by employment).
General services were the second fastest growth area for employment between 1947 and 1968, and about 10 percent of employment in general services is in private educational institutions. Thus education as a whole, both public and private, represented 8 percent of total employment in the United States. Within general services, the largest category is medical services, where employment rose from i .4 million in 1958 to 2.6 million a decade later.
The spread of services, particularly in trade, finance, education, health, and government, conjures up the picture of a white-collar society. But all services are not white collar, since they include transportation workers and auto repairmen. But then, not all manufacturing is blue-collar work. In 1970 the white-collar component within manufacturing—professional, managerial, clerical, and sales— came to almost 31 percent of that work force, while 69 percent were blue-collar workers (6,055,000 white-collar and 13,400,000 blue-collar). By 1975 the white-collar component will reach 34.5 percent. Within the blue-collar force itself there has been a steady and distinct shift from direct production to non-production jobs as more and more work becomes automated and in the factory, workers increasingly are employed in machine-tending, repair, and maintenance, rather than on the assembly line.7
In 1980 the total manufacturing labor force will number about 22 million, or 22 percent of the labor force at that time. But with the continuing spread of major technological developments such as numerical-control machine tools, electronic computers, instrumentation and automatic controls, the proportion of direct production workers is expected to go down steadily. Richard Bellmann, the Rand mathematician, has often been quoted as predicting that by the year 2000 only 2 percent of the labor force will be required to turn out all necessary manufactured goods, but the figure is fanciful and inherently unprovable. Automation is a real fact, but the bogey of an accelerated pace has not materialized.8 But even a steady advance of 2 to 3 percent in productivity a year, manageable though it may be economically and socially (people are usually not fired, but jobs are eliminated through attrition), inevitably takes its toll. What is clear is that if an industrial society is defined as a goods-producing society— if manufacture is central in shaping the character of its labor force— then the United States is no longer an industrial society.
The changeover to a post-industrial society is signified not only by the change in sector distribution—the places where people work —but in the pattern of occupations, the kind of work they do. And here the story is a familiar one. The United States has become a white-collar society. From a total of about 5.5 million persons in 1900 (making up about 17.6 percent of the labor force), the white-collar group by 1974 came to 41.7 million (148.6 percent) and will rise to 48.3 million in 1980, when it will account for half (50.8 percent) of all employed workers. (See Tables 2-4 and 2-5.)
TABLE 2-4
Percentage Distribution by Major Occupation Group, 1900-1960
SOURCE: Computed from Historical Statistics of the United States.
NOTE: Percentages may not add to 100 because of rounding.
Since 1920, the white-collar group has been the fastest-growing occupational group in the society, and this will continue. In 1956, for the first time, this group surpassed the employment of blue-collar workers. By 1980 the ratio will be about 5:3 in favor of the white-collar workers.
Stated in these terms, the change is dramatic, yet somewhat deceptive, for until recently the overwhelming number of white-collar workers have been women, in minor clerical or sales jobs; and in American society, as in most others, family status is still evaluated on the basis of the man’s job. But it is at this point—in the changing nature of the male labor force—that a status upheaval has been taking place. In 1900 only 15 percent of American men wore white collars (and most of these were independent small businessmen). By 1940 the figure had gone up to 25 percent (and these were largely in administrative jobs). In 1970 almost 42 percent of the male labor force —some twenty million men—held white-collar jobs (as against twenty-three million who wore blue collars), and of these, almost fourteen million were managerial, professional, or technical—the heart of the upper middle class in the United States.9
TABLE 2-5
Occupational Distribution of Employed Persons: 1958-1974 (Actual); 1980 (Projected)
SOURCES: The figures for 1958 and 1974 are from The Manpower Report of the President, 1975 Table A-15, P- 225- The projections for 1980 are from the U.S. Department of Labor, Bulletin 1673 (1970). Numbers and Percentages have been rounded.
The total blue-collar occupations, which numbered about 12 million in 1900, rose to 29.7 million in 1974 and will rise at a slower rate to 31.1 million in 1980. In 1900, the blue-collar workers formed about 35 percent of the total labor force, a figure which reached 40 percent in 1920 and again, after World War II, in 1950, but by 1974 it was down to about 34.9 percent of the total labor force and by 1980 will reach an historic low of 32.7 percent.
The most striking change, of course, has been in the farm population. In 1900 farming was still the single largest occupation in the United States, comprising 12.5 million workers and about 37.5 percent of the labor force. Until about 1930, the absolute number of farmers and farm workers continued to rise though their share of employment began to decline. In 1940, because of the extraordinary agricultural revolution, which shot productivity to spectacular heights, the number of farm laborers began its rapid decline. In 1974, employment on the farms numbered 3.0 million, and this will decline to 2.6 million in 1980; from 3.5 percent of the work force in 1974 it will fall to 2.7 percent in 1980.
The service occupations continue to expand steadily. In 1900 there were about three million persons in services, more than half of whom were domestics. In 1974, there were almost 11.4 million persons in services, only 10 percent of whom were domestics. The major rises were in such occupations as garage workers, hotel and restaurant workers, and the like. Through the 1970s, service occupations will increase by two-fifths or a rate one and one-half times the expansion for all occupations combined.
The category of semi-skilled worker (called operatives in the census classification) from 1920 on was the single largest occupational category in the economy, comprising more workers than any other group. Semi-skilled work is the occupational counterpart of mass production, and it rose with the increased output of goods. But the introduction of sophisticated new technologies has slowed the growth of this group drastically. Total employment will rise from 14 million in 1974 to 15.4 mi
llion in 1980, but the rate of increase is half the increase projected for all employment.
As a share of total employment, the percentage of semi-skilled will slide downward from 18.4 percent in 1968 to 16.2 percent in 1980 and will at that time be third in size ranking, outpaced by clerical, which will be the largest, and by professional and technical workers. Equally, the proportion of factory workers among the semi-skilled will probably drop. In 1968, six out of every ten semi-skilled workers were employed as factory operatives. Large numbers of them now work as inspectors, maintenance men, operators of material-moving equipment such as powered forklift trucks, and the like. Among the non-factory operatives, drivers of trucks, buses, and taxi-cabs make up the largest group.
The central occupational category in the society today is the professional and technical. Growth in this category has outdistanced all other major occupational groups in recent decades. From less than a million in 1890, the number of these workers has grown to 12.3 million in 1974. Within this category, the largest group was teachers (more than 2 million), the second largest professional health workers (about 2 million), scientists and engineers (about 1.4 million), and engineering and science technicians (about 900,000). Despite the momentary slowdown in the demand for education, and the immediate unemployment in engineering because of the shift away from defense work in 1970-1971, requirements in this category continue to lead all others, increasing half again in size (about twice the employment increase among all occupations combined) between 1968 and 1980. With 15.5 million workers in 1980, this will comprise 16.3 percent of total employment as against 11 percent in 1958. (For a graphic representation of the changes in the occupational categories, see Figures 2-1 and 2-2.)
These historic shifts pose a serious problem for the trade-union movement, which in the United States has historically been a blue-collar phenomenon. On the record, the trade-union movement (AFL-CIO plus the major independents) is stronger than it has ever been since the beginning of mass organizing in 1935. In 1970, the total American membership rose to 19,381,000, its all-time high. In the 1960s it gained 2,300,000 members, though the major increase came in the mid-years and the gains of the last two years were only half those of the major period of increase from 1964-1966.10
Yet this is a superficial way of looking at the problem, for the extraordinary fact is that, as a percentage of the total labor force, the number of members today is exactly the same as in 1947; and as a percentage of workers in non-agricultural establishments, the sector where most members are found and most organizing efforts are made, the percentage of union members is less today than in 1947. In effect, trade unionism in the United States has made no real advance in nearly a quarter of a century. (See Table 2-6.)
FIGURE 2-1
Employment Trends among Major Occupational Categories,* 1947-1968 (Actual)
and 1980 (Projected for a Services Economy with 3 Percent Unemployment)
*Farm workers include farm managers.
FIGURE 2-2
Net Job Openings in Major Occupational Categories and Groups, 1968-1980
(Projected for a Services Economy with 3 Percent Unemployment)
SOURCE: The U. S. Economy in 1980, Bureau of Labor Statistics Bulletin 1673
(1970).
TABLE 2-6
Union Membership As a Proportion of the Labor Force,) 1947-1970
SOURCES: 1947 and 1952 figures by Leo Troy, Bureau of National Research; 1956-1968 data in Bureau of Labor Statistics, Bulletin 1665; 1970 data in release, BLS
(September 13, 1971).
NOTE: In percentage of employees organized, the United States ranks among the lowest of Western industrial nations. In Belgium/Luxembourg, more than 65 percent of employees are organized, in Italy more than 55 percent, in Great Britain more than 45 percent, in Holland more than 40 percent, in Germany almost 40 percent, and France about 20 percent. (Data from European Economic Community, reported in The Economist [June 19, 1971], p. 46.)
After the Wagner Act was passed in 1935 and until the end of World War II, union membership made a four-fold gain. In subsequent years, the membership became stabilized. In 1953-1954, I wrote a series of studies for Fortune and elsewhere predicting that the labor movement would stop growing, and describing the kind of plateau it would reach.11My reasoning was based on the argument that unionism had come to the saturation point in manufacturing and construction simply because it had organized almost all the major employers, and it was too costly to tackle the small units of under a hundred that remained unorganized. There would be an expansion in the distributive trades (teamsters, retail clerks) since these were expanding areas of the labor force, but such gains would be offset by declines in railroad and mining. The unions had shown themselves incapable of organizing the white-collar and technical workers; the only major area for union growth was government employment and this depended on favorable government support.
Union growth in the United States has always been dependent on favorable government support. While it is clear that the upsurge of unionism in the 1930s was indigenous, its institutionalization was possible only under the umbrella of the National Labor Relations Board. The union gains could later be consolidated only when the War Labor Board virtually enacted union-shop clauses in collective-bargaining contracts during World War II.
The only real growth in American trade unionism in the last decade has been among government workers, and here the same forces have been at work. In January 1962, President Kennedy issued Executive Order 10988, which encouraged unionism in the federal service. This order gave clear and unequivocal support to public unionism, just as the Wagner Act of 1935 had supported unions and collective bargaining in private business. It declared that “the efficient administration of the government and the well-being of employees require that orderly and constructive relationships be maintained between employee organizations and management.” In New York City, earlier executive orders by Mayor Robert F. Wagner resulted in the “breakthrough” of unionism, in 1961, among 44,000 teachers. Similar orders were issued in Philadelphia and other cities with evident results.12
In 1970, in some measure because of the economic downturn, in other measure because of the facilitating role of government, there began a movement for the unionization of college teachers. The growth of bargaining in the public sector was facilitated by the passage of public employee relations laws or similar measures in 19 states. The prospects for unionization at private institutions were enhanced when the National Labor Relations Board in 1970 assumed jurisdiction at private colleges and universities with gross incomes of more than $ 1 million a year.
By the end of 1971, collective bargaining agents for professors had been recognized at 133 of the country’s 2,500 colleges and universities. These were principally in six states, New York, Michigan, New Jersey, Wisconsin, Illinois, and Massachusetts. But half the total number of the faculty covered were employees of two New York systems, those of the State University and the City University.
In most areas of the country, teachers are organized, but usually in such professional associations as the National Education Association for elementary and secondary school teachers, or the American Association of University Professors. In the past, both have eschewed direct bargaining roles and contented themselves, particularly the NEA, with lobbying activities. In the 1970s, given the competition of teachers’ unions, it is likely that both organizations will turn more aggressively to the economic defense of teachers’ interests.
In 1956, when the Bureau of Labor Statistics first started collecting data on union membership by industry, 915,000 persons, or 5.1 percent of a total union membership of 18.1 million, were in government. By the end of 1962, the number had grown to 1.2 million, or 7 percent of the total membership, and by 1968 union membership had climbed to 2.2 million, or 10.7 percent of the total membership.13
The main push had been in the federal government, where about half the employees have been organized. But in the larger area of state and local gove
rnment, less than 10 percent of their employees are unionized. The proportion of government employees organized at different levels is shown in Table 2-7.
TABLE 2-7
Proportion of Government Employees Organized
SOURCE: Monthly Labor Review (July 1970).
NOTE: Dashes indicate data not available.
The relatively large advance in government unionism has changed the sector distribution of unionism in the United States. Following the big drive of the CIO, more than half of American unionism by 1949 was in manufacturing, but as shown in Table 2-8, that proportion has slowly begun to change in recent years and we can look for greater shifts in the years ahead.
TABLE 2-8
Union Membership by Sector, 1956 and 1968
(In Thousands)
Since 1956, union membership in manufacturing and non-manufacturing has continued to shrink as a proportion of total membership (union membership in manufacturing declined 44,000 between 1968 and 1970), and only membership in the public sector has moved upward. It is estimated that about 60 percent of manufacturing employment is organized, compared to one-quarter in non-manufacturing and a little less than 20 percent in government employment.
It is the white-collar field, of course, that is crucial for the future of organized labor, and here trade unionism has done poorly (see Table 2-9). According to reports from 167 unions and estimates for 22, total white-collar membership in 1968 stood at 3.2 million. This is about 15 percent of all union members. The highest ratio of white-collar union workers, more than 40 percent, was in government service, followed by 22 percent in non-manufacturing and 4 percent in manufacturing. Sixty-two unions reported a total of 982,000 professional and technical members, but a large proportion of this group consisted of unions exclusively representing professional employees such as actors and artists, musicians, airline pilots, and, of those in government, mainly teachers. The major white-collar areas —in trade, finance, and insurance—remain largely unorganized, as does the entire area of science and engineering technicians and engineers.