Blue Collar Glory: Matthew Crawford's "Shop Class as Shopcraft."

As a lawyer representing labor unions and working people, I am often struck by the fact that many of my clients are better off than some lawyers and professionals I know.  Some workers I represent make close to six figures (albeit by working 80 hour weeks and collecting overtime), and some are able to retire at age 55 with a guaranteed pension.  In contrast, most lawyers and professionals I know are still paying off student loans, and there is no defined benefit pension in their  futures.  Some of these same workers are happier in their work lives as well.  Unlike some white collar workers, who are salaried workaholics, these folks make things and fix things from 9-5, then at the end of the day they are done -- free to have a beer and forget about work.  There is always another project for some professionals, and every lawyer I know has at some point woken up in the middle of the night wondering if he screwed something up -- a filing deadline, an argument missed in a brief.

Matthew B. Crawford explores some of these issues in his brilliant little book "Shop Class as Soulcraft," which recently came out in paperback.  Crawford's basic argument is that blue collar work in which people make things has been devalued, and white collar work glorified, as optimists proclaim that "knowledge workers" are the way of the future.  Yet as Crawford points out, many white collar jobs are soul-destroying endeavors in which nothing is produced, and there is no real way to measure productivity.  Hence the rise of a managerial class whose job it is to act as coaches and spout corporate-speak platitudes, create "teams" so no one is individually responsible, and build corporate "brands."  Since knowledge workers aren't really producing tangible things, Crawford notes, the evaluation of what each person contributes is vague and opaque, with the consequence that these workers are judged subjectively.

Crawford contrasts these workers with blue collar folks like motorcycle mechanics or carpenters whose work is objectively measured -- a door is either level or it isn't; valves are either set right or they aren't.  In Crawford's tale, pride of craftsmanship equalizes worker and boss in a certain way because a craftsman has something objective by which to judge his contribution to a project.  The boss respects a worker who does the job right, and a worker has pride of ownership.

Crawford has a Ph.D. and started out at a think tank, only to start his own motorcycle repair shop.  He beautifully details how he rebuilt car engines as a kid, and how he fixes motorcycles and fabricates  motorcycle parts now.  It's enough to make me wish I still had my 1966 Volkswagen bus and a copy of John Muir's "How to Keep Your Volkswagen Alive" manual.

Crawford is on to something here, but the tale is too simple.  Yes, too many people go to college who might be better served going out and learning a trade.  And yes, if you make something you know if you've done it right in an objective sense.  But not everyone can be a motorcycle mechanic at a boutique shop, and not everyone can take his knowledge and become a craftsman.  Most people who go to trade school end up not owning their own little businesses but working for corporations where they are, alas, subject to the petty prejudices of their supervisors, not to mention the whims of superstar CEOs who want to build up the bottom line at the expense of workers.  Some of the saddest cases I run into are skilled workers who, at age 40 or 45 or 50, have been laid off and have no real prospect of every reaching the level of wages and benefits they had when they were laid off. 

Take Harley Davidson, the iconic motorcycle manufacturer.  Harley used to employ about 2,200 workers at it York, PA plant.  Harley essentially had two plants at York, a modern assembly line that cranked out new bikes, and an older "legacy" plant.  At the legacy plant some assembly work was done.  However, the legacy plant also employed highly skilled workers who made custom parts, fabricated parts for old Harleys, and could make anything that Harley needed to make.  If someone needed a part for a 1948 Panhead and it couldn't be found, the legacy plant could make it.  The workers in the legacy plant were highly skilled fabricators, mechanics, and craftsmen in every sense of the word.   

In 2009 a new CEO came in, who decided that Harley wasn't profitable enough.  Even though the union at Harley demonstrated that Harley could save money by keeping the legacy plant open, the CEO closed down the legacy plant to concentrate on new bikes.  Some 400 workers took buyouts, and another 500 have been laid off, with another 500-600 layoffs targeted.  The laid off workers face the prospect of a grim economy, with faint likelihood of making the kind of money and benefits they made at Harley.  These folks have skills, but there isn't much demand for their skills in an America that doesn't make things anymore.

Crawford's theory is nice, and I don't disagree with him.  However, Crawford tends to glorify blue collar work and denigrate white collar work, when the reality is more complex.  His argument, that pride of craft and teaching people trades is better than sending everyone to college makes some sense.  However, in some ways his theory is the equivalent of those on the right who glorify "entrepreneurs" and think that every economic problem can be solved by creating small businesses.  Nonetheless, the book is excellent, well-written, and espouses a view that needs to be reckoned with.