Collar color is a set of terms denoting groups of working individuals based on the colors of their collars worn at work. These can commonly reflect one's occupation within a broad class, or sometimes gender; [1] at least in the late 20th and 21st century, these are generally metaphorical and not a description of typical present apparel. For the two terms of longest use, white-collar workers are named for the white-collared shirts that were fashionable among office workers in the early and mid-20th century. Blue-collar workers are referred to as such because in the early 20th century, they usually wore sturdy, inexpensive clothing that did not show dirt easily, such as blue denim or cambric shirts.
Various other "collar" descriptions exist as well, although none have received the kind of broad use in American English as the traditional white-collar/blue-collar distinction.
The term "white-collar worker" was coined in the 1930s by Upton Sinclair, an American writer who referenced the word in connection to clerical, administrative and managerial functions during the 1930s. [2] A white-collar worker is a salaried professional, [3] typically referring to general office workers and management.
A blue-collar worker is a member of the working class who performs manual labor and either earns an hourly wage or is paid piece rate for the amount of work done. This term was first used in 1924. [4]
A pink-collar worker is also a member of the working class who performs in the service industry. They work in positions such as waiters, retail clerks, salespersons, certain unlicensed assistive personnel, and many other positions involving relations with people. The term was coined in the late 1970s as a phrase to describe jobs that were typically held by women; now the meaning has changed to encompass all service jobs. [5] [6] [7]
There are a number of other terms used less frequently, or which translate to English from common use in other languages. [8]
Carpentry is a skilled trade and a craft in which the primary work performed is the cutting, shaping and installation of building materials during the construction of buildings, ships, timber bridges, concrete formwork, etc. Carpenters traditionally worked with natural wood and did rougher work such as framing, but today many other materials are also used and sometimes the finer trades of cabinetmaking and furniture building are considered carpentry. In the United States, 98.5% of carpenters are male, and it was the fourth most male-dominated occupation in the country in 1999. In 2006 in the United States, there were about 1.5 million carpentry positions. Carpenters are usually the first tradesmen on a job and the last to leave. Carpenters normally framed post-and-beam buildings until the end of the 19th century; now this old-fashioned carpentry is called timber framing. Carpenters learn this trade by being employed through an apprenticeship training—normally four years—and qualify by successfully completing that country's competence test in places such as the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Switzerland, Australia and South Africa. It is also common that the skill can be learned by gaining work experience other than a formal training program, which may be the case in many places.
Pink is the color of a namesake flower that is a pale tint of red. It was first used as a color name in the late 17th century. According to surveys in Europe and the United States, pink is the color most often associated with charm, politeness, sensitivity, tenderness, sweetness, childhood, femininity, and romance. A combination of pink and white is associated with innocence, whereas a combination of pink and black links to eroticism and seduction. In the 21st century, pink is seen as a symbol of femininity, though it has not always been seen this way. In the 1920s, light red, which is similar to pink, was seen as a color that reflected masculinity.
Social class in the United States refers to the idea of grouping Americans by some measure of social status, typically by economic status. However, it could also refer to social status and/or location. The idea that American society can be divided into social classes is disputed, and there are many competing class systems.
A blue-collar worker is a person who performs manual labor or skilled trades. Blue-collar work may involve skilled or unskilled labor. The type of work may involve manufacturing, warehousing, mining, excavation, carpentry, electricity generation and power plant operations, electrical construction and maintenance, custodial work, farming, commercial fishing, logging, landscaping, pest control, food processing, oil field work, waste collection and disposal, recycling, construction, maintenance, shipping, driving, trucking, and many other types of physical work. Blue-collar work often involves something being physically built or maintained. In social status, blue-collar workers generally belong to the working class.
A white-collar worker is a person who performs professional service, desk, managerial, or administrative work. White-collar work may be performed in an office or other administrative setting. White-collar workers include job paths related to government, consulting, academia, accountancy, business and executive management, customer support, design, economics, science, technology, engineering, market research, finance, human resources, operations research, marketing, public relations, real estate, information technology, networking, law, healthcare, architecture, and research and development.
In computing, on the X Window System, X11 color names are represented in a simple text file, which maps certain strings to RGB color values. It was traditionally shipped with every X11 installation, hence the name, and is usually located in <X11root>/lib/X11/rgb.txt. The web colors list is descended from it but differs for certain color names.
A color term is a word or phrase that refers to a specific color. The color term may refer to human perception of that color which is usually defined according to the Munsell color system, or to an underlying physical property. There are also numerical systems of color specification, referred to as color spaces.
A laborer is a skilled trade, a person who works in manual labor types, especially in the construction and factory industries. Laborers are in a working class of wage-earners in which their only possession of significant material value is their labor. Industries employing laborers include building things such as roads, road paving, buildings, bridges, tunnels, pipelines civil and industrial, and railway tracks. Laborers work with blasting tools, hand tools, power tools, air tools, and small heavy equipment, and act as assistants to other trades as well such as operators or cement masons. The 1st century BC engineer Vitruvius writes that a good crew of laborers is just as valuable as any other aspect of construction. Other than the addition of pneumatics, laborer practices have changed little. With the introduction of field technologies, the laborers have been quick to adapt to the use of this technology as being laborers' workforce.
A construction worker is a worker employed in the physical construction of the built environment and its infrastructure.
In many languages, the colors described in English as "blue" and "green" are colexified, i.e., expressed using a single umbrella term. To render this ambiguous notion in English, linguists use the blend word grue, from green and blue, a term coined by the philosopher Nelson Goodman—with an unrelated meaning—in his 1955 Fact, Fiction, and Forecast to illustrate his "new riddle of induction".
A pink-collar worker is someone working in the care-oriented career field or in fields historically considered to be women's work. This may include jobs in the beauty industry, nursing, social work, teaching, secretarial work, or child care. While these jobs may also be filled by men, they have historically been female-dominated and may pay significantly less than white-collar or blue-collar jobs.
Day labor is work done where the worker is hired and paid one day at a time, with no promise that more work will be available in the future. It is a form of contingent work.
The uniforms of the United States Navy include dress uniforms, daily service uniforms, working uniforms, and uniforms for special situations, which have varied throughout the history of the navy. For simplicity in this article, officers refers to both commissioned officers and warrant officers.
Roustabout is an occupational term. Traditionally, it referred to a worker with broad-based, non-specific skills. In particular, it was used to describe show or circus workers who handled materials for construction on fairgrounds. In modern times it is applied to rural employment, such as those assisting sheep shearing, and positions in the oil industry.
Grey-collar refers to the balance of employed people not classified as white- or blue collar. It is occasionally used to describe elderly individuals working beyond the age of retirement, as well as those occupations that incorporate some of the elements of both blue- and white-collar, and generally are in between the two categories in terms of income-earning capability.
A prison uniform is a set of standardized clothing worn by prisoners. It usually includes visually distinct clothes worn to indicate the wearer is a prisoner, in clear distinction from civil clothing.
Workwear is clothing worn for work, especially work that involves manual labour. Often those employed within trade industries elect to be outfitted in workwear because it is built to provide durability and safety.
Blue collar workersin Japan encompass many different types of manual labor jobs, including factory work, construction, and agriculture. Blue-collar workers make up a very large portion of the labor force in Japan, with 30.1% of employed people ages 15 and over working as "craftsman, mining, manufacturing and construction workers and laborers" as of 1995 census data. The blue-collar class includes regular, non-regular, and part-time workers, as well as a large number of foreign laborers, all with varying work schedules and employment benefits.
The working class is a subset of employees who are compensated with wage or salary-based contracts, whose exact membership varies from definition to definition. Members of the working class rely primarily upon earnings from wage labour. Most common definitions of "working class" in use in the United States limit its membership to workers who hold blue-collar and pink-collar jobs, or whose income is insufficiently high to place them in the middle class, or both. However, socialists define "working class" to include all workers who fall into this category; thus, this definition can include almost all of the working population of industrialized economies.
Color is an essential aspect of the aesthetic properties of clothing. The color of clothing has a significant impact on one's appearance. Our clothes communicate about us and reveal our social and economic standing.
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