In my view blue-collar was and will always be a part of the workforce. We should note that John Henry was surpassed by a steam engine in the early stage of industrialization and the rise of the railroads. But the steam engines required operators and maintenance, not to mention those who built them. The railroads were the vital link that led to the mass-production industries of the 20th century. The onset of electrification furthered the trend to large factories with blue-collar worker concentrations. The pace of this change was staggering in population movements, new technologies, and in the workforce. We should have particular regard for the need in this period (by the 1920s) for the workforce (for the first time in history) to be literate and numerate for even the basic (unskilled) jobs, and certainly for any kind of advancement. This was a giant challenge and greatly expanded public education all the way through high school. Does this sound familiar?
Today in the early 21st century, change on a comparable scale to the rise of mass production is underway. Today mass production yields to custom orders, stockpiles of goods to "just in time" production and delivery. Today, in the early 21st century, being literate and numerate is mandatory, but not enough. We must also be "computer literate." We actually need to be skilled in acquiring new skills, skills which are information-based themselves. Most of this applies to and includes the traditional blue-collar jobs as well as other types of work. Consider the mobile service tech with wireless access to the World Wide Web, the medical technician with the hospital network, the construction project with its website hub for information sharing for all contractors and trades, the manufacturing site with its digital controls and order management. All these are still blue-collar manual labor occupations, with access to more powerful tools of information than previously dreamed of even in science fiction. And let us ask, who will build and service the vast fiber optic networks, the servers and routers, LANs and WANs? Such technical tasks require technically and manually adept blue-collar techs.
So I think, yes, blue-collar occupations will continue to thrive. Blue-collar jobs will continue to change and meet the new needs of the economy and society as they have throughout history. We will have to change our own expectations: the days of one skill set and one lifetime job are long gone. In the 21st century we will have to develop our skills and sharpen our technique and training. We have the opportunity to move beyond a lot of the gut-busting labor of the past and use new tools and technologies, but we have to be willing to move forward, away from outmoded methods. At Atlanta Technical College, and in technical education, and in the workforce in this country, this is our monumental challenge.
