A.O. Smith/Tower Automotive Milwaukee Works Blast From The Past

Keep the memory alive.
A.O. Smith/Tower Automotive
A blast from the past A.O. Smith/Tower Automotive Milwaukee Works. Let us never forget 154 Acre complex with a height of employment at 12,000 employees from automotive, truck frames, beer tanks, bombs and airplane parts, powdered metal parts, railroad products, elevators, and the largest tool room in Milwaukee. As always "Expect something Special" A.O. Smith motto.

Blue-Collar Worker and the A.O. Smith Connection Milwaukee Works

A blue-collar worker is a working-class person who performs manual labor. Blue-collar work may involve skilled or unskilled manufacturing, mining, sanitation, custodial work, textile manufacturing, power plant operations, farming, commercial fishing, landscaping, pest control, food processing, oil field work, waste disposal, recycling, electrical, plumbing, construction, mechanic, maintenance, warehousing, shipping, technical installation, and many other types of physical work

If the 20th century saw workers classified by either a white or blue-collar, then you could say the 21st century may commingle the colors until they turn a pleasing shade of pearl gray. At least, this is the way some of the sea changes taking place in the world of work appear right now. If the middle-aged people on your staff are unclear about these two definitions, the younger workers are probably downright mystified. Paint a picture of the fascinating origins of the American workplace – and see how it may be shading your small business.

Both terms came into common use in the 1920s, with novelist Upton Sinclair credited with coining the term “white-collar” to denote those workers who performed administrative or clerical work. The nature of this work – still performed mostly by men at the time – required that the workers wear crisp, white dress shirts, hence the reference. The Wall Street Journal, even then regarded as “the businessman's paper of record,” liked the term so much that it began using it in 1923. More than a collar put blue-collar workers in a separate category; so did their entire work uniform. As construction workers, loggers, mechanics, carpenters, and factory assemblymen, they wore overalls, jeans or durable work shirts – mostly in the color blue, to more easily cover the dust and dirt they inevitably came into contact with.

The “collar” eventually widened to include those jobs that are decidedly non-manual in nature and so usually placed workers in an office setting. From accountants and bankers to architects and engineers, white-collar workers required at least a high school diploma, though many also held an associate's, bachelor's, masters or other advanced degrees. Their wages, paid in the form of a weekly salary, easily outdistanced those of blue-collar workers.

White-collar workers became more than ubiquitous; it appears that most Americans easily grasped who they were and their role in society. Even the United States Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, doesn't define “white-collar worker.” Tellingly, it does define “blue-collar worker.”

Видео A.O. Smith/Tower Automotive Milwaukee Works Blast From The Past канала Richard Zautcke