Reports of apathy, absenteeism, and even industrial sabotage among blue collar workers, of poor morale among some white collar workers (particularly those in repetitive dead end jobs), of college youths' disdain of bureaucratic jobs in government or industry, and even of executives forsaking promising careers to head out to fields unknown all these have caused some observers, notably commentators from the print and broadcast media, to question the future of work in American society. Is our commitment to the work ethic fading?
Since all of these symptoms appeared to imply some weakening of this commitment, it is not surprising that the search for a culprit has turned its spotlight on the institution of work itself the way it is organized, its adequacy in meeting human needs, and the effects of work upon other dimensions of human welfare. A special focus of concern has been the "blue collar worker" with the automobile assembly line worker as the inevitable archetype. The "blue collar blues" has become part of the media lexicon, together with knowing references to more esoteric psychological terms such as "work satisfiers and dissatisfiers", "alienation" and "anomie."
The media, moreover, have simply reflected a growing concern on the part of key officials in industry, labor, and the Government a concern that "all is not well" among important segments of our nation's work force. An initial official effort to place these concerns in broader perspective was contained in a paper on the "Problems of the Blue Collar Worker," prepared in early 1970 by U.S. Department of Labor staff for an ad hoc White House Task Group. The paper pointed to symptoms of growing disaffection among lower middle income work Reprinted from The Vocational Guidance Quarterly, 24:155 164 (Dec. 1975) by permission of the publisher and authors (those in the $5,000 10,000 family income range), and suggested that this was due to a combination of pressures: an "economic squeeze," resulting from inflationary pressures and limited advancement opportunities; a "social squeeze," reflected especially in deterioration of their communities and in racial ethnic conflicts; and a "workplace squeeze" associated with a variety of depressing working conditions, ranging from grinding monotony to unpleasant or unsafe work environments.
Against this backdrop, Elliot Richardson, then Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare, approved initiation in December 1971 of a broad gaged study of the "institution of work" and of its implications for health, education, and welfare.
The study was conducted by a 10 member Task Force, chaired by James O'Toole, a social anthropologist serving as a staff assistant in Secretary Richardson's office. Patterned after an earlier HEW study group on higher education policies, the members of the task force were apparently given full rein to develop their own thinking on the issues, independent of the usual bureaucratic constraints. The resulting report, Work in America, was released in December 1972, together with a cautious foreword by Secretary Richardson, which praised the report for "the breadth of its perspectives and its freshness of outlook," but clearly disassociated himself and the Administration from many of its recommendations.
The Task Force View
The study takes as its point of departure the premise that "work" broadly defined as socially useful activity is central to the lives of most adults. In addition to the obvious economic functions of work, work performs an essential psychological and social role in providing individuals with a status, a sense of identity, and an opportunity for social interaction. Referring to recent surveys as evidence, it concludes that individuals on welfare and the poor generally have the same needs and compulsions for work as do those in the economic mainstream.
But, though the work ethic is still "alive" in America, the report finds that it is hot "well" and it ascribes this condition to the institution of work itself. Citing a variety of psychological studies and survey findings, the task force concludes that large numbers of American workers at all occupational levels are pervasively dissatisfied with the quality of their working lives. Significant numbers of employed workers are locked in to "dull, repetitive seemingly meaningless tasks, offering little challenge or autonomy." And many others, including large numbers of older workers, "suffer the ultimate in job dissatisfaction" in being completely deprived of an opportunity to work at "meaningful" jobs.
The principal sources of worker discontent as seen by the authors are to be found in the confines of the individual workplace itself. The central villains of the piece are (1) the process of work breakdown and specialization associated with the pernicious influence of Frederick W. Taylor and his industrial engineer disciples, and (2) the diminished opportunities for work autonomy, resulting from the shift in locus of jobs from self employment or small scale enterprises to large impersonal corporate and government bureaucracies. Although these trends are recognized as having been underway for many decades, what is new in the current climate, the study contends, is a revolutionary change in attitudes and values among many members of the work force youth, minority members, and women. With higher expectations generated by increased educational achievement, these groups in particular are placing greater emphasis on the intrinsic aspects of work, its inherent challenge and interest, and less on strictly material rewards. In the case of minority workers, the study recognizes that large numbers are still concerned with the elemental needs for a job any job that pays a living wage, but it notes relatively high rates of discontent among black workers in many better paying jobs as well. The relegation of women to poor paying, low status jobs, and the plight of older workers, both in and out of the labor force, are also discussed.
This complex of discontents is, in turn, identified as the root cause of various ills besetting the American economy "reduced productivity," "the doubling of man days per year lost through strikes," and increases in absenteeism, sabotage, and turnover rates. In addition, a variety of other ills are attributed to work related problems, including problems of physical and mental health, family instability, and drug and alcohol addiction.
Since the central diagnosis for this wide array of economic and social problems is found in the faulty organization of work, the principal remedy presented by the task force is the reorganization of work. Although "work redesign" is never explicitly defined by the authors, a number of recent experiments are cited both here and abroad which have had in common an extensive restructuring of jobs designed to broaden and vary the scope of workers' duties and to provide increased worker autonomy and participation in work related decisions, often accompanied by some form of profit sharing. Collaborative efforts by labor, management and government in Norway and Sweden, resulting in a number of pilot job redesign projects, are cited as a model for emulation.
Although work redesign is identified as the "keystone" of the report, the authors concede that this is not a sufficient solution to the problems of work and of workers in America. The final two chapters therefore address themselves, more generally, to a range of other work related problems and possible solutions. Since some jobs can "never be made satisfying," an alternative approach is to facilitate movement of workers out of these jobs, through a massive midcareer retraining option or "self renewal program" for workers.
In a concluding chapter, the report addresses itself broadly to a variety of other manpower and welfare policy issues. It endorses a "total employment" strategy, designed to produce "reasonable satisfying" jobs not only for the 5 million workers currently reported as unemployed but for an estimated 10 to 30 million additional persons who are underemployed, on welfare, or out of the labor market but who the authors contend would take meaningful jobs, if available. This is to be accomplished through a combination of large scale manpower training and public employment programs and through appropriate fiscal and monetary policies. With respect to welfare reform, it is strongly critical of mandatory work provisions, as applied to welfare mothers, as reflecting a lack of appreciation of the social value of the mother's role in housekeeping and childrearing activities. The report suggests that policy emphasis be shifted to obtaining suitable employment for the fathers, while upgrading the status of housework in part, by including housewives in the statistical count of the labor force.
