Explore "White Collar" by C. Wright Mills on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Once the foreman, representing the bottom stratum of management, was everything to the worker, the holder of his ‘life and future. ' Industrial disputes often seemed disputes between disgruntled workmen and rawhiding foremen; and yet the foreman's position was aspired to by the workman. The close relations, favored by the smaller plant and town, helped make for contentment, even though the foreman held the first line of defense for management. Having a monopoly on job gratification, he often took for himself any feeling of achievement to which his gang's labor might lead; he solved problems and overcame obstacles for the men laboring below him. He was the master craftsman: he knew more about the work processes than any of the men he bossed. Before mass production, the foreman was works manager and supervisor, production planner and personnel executive, all in one.
He is still all of that in many small plants and in certain industries that have no technical staff and few office workers. But such plants may be seen historically as lags and their foremen as precursors of modern technical and supervisory personnel.