It is only in the world of census statistics, and not in terms of direct assessment, that an assembly line worker is presumed to have greater skill than a fisherman or oysterman, the forklift operator greater skill than the gardener or groundskeeper, the machine feeder greater skill than the longshoreman, the parking lot attendant greater skill than the lumberman or raftsman. And with the routinization of machine operation, there is less and less reason to rate the operative above many other classifications of laborers, such as craftsmen's helpers. The entire concept of “semi-skill," as applied to operatives, is an increasingly delusory one. The prefix semi means “half' or“partly." When this prefix is attached to the noun skill, the resulting compound word leaves the impression of a level of training and ability that lies somewhereperhaps about halfway—between skill and the total lack of it. But for the category of operatives, training requirements and the demands of the job upon the abilities of the worker are now so low that one can hardly imagine jobs that lie significantly below them on any scale of skill. If we turn, for example, to the United States Department ofLabor's Occupational Outlook Handbook, which is virtually the only systematic and official attempt to describe occupational skills and training, we find the category of operatives described as follows:
Semiskilled workers ordinarily receive only brief on-the-job training. Usually they are told exactly what to do and how to do it, and their work is supervised closely. They often repeat the same motions or the same jobs throughout the working day.
Semiskilled workers do not need to invest many years in learning their jobs. The simplest repetitive and routine semiskilled jobs can be learned in a day and mastered in a few weeks. Even those jobs that require a higher degree of skill, such as truckdriver, can be learned in a few months. At the same time, adaptability—the ability to learn new jobs quickly, including the operation of new machines—is an important qualification for semiskilled workers.
New employees starting out in semiskilled jobs are not expected to be highly proficient, After a short training period, however, they must work at a standard, fast, and steady pace. Frequently, good eyesight and good coordination are required.⁶
Jobs which require merely the ordinary physical characteristics of human beings in a fair state of health; where duties are learned in periods ranging from as little as a day to, at a maximum, a few months; in which the worker is “told exactly what to do and how to do it"; which are “supervised closely," repeat the “same motions or the same jobs throughout the working day," and of which the Department of Labor analysts can find nothing more favorable to say than that they demand “adaptability"—is this not a definition of unskilled labor? Here is another description, by a British authority:
The oldest and most traditional differentiation between hourly-paid workers in British industry is based upon skill; skilled, semi-skilled, and unskilled categories being recognized in the wage structure of most industries, and in the class structure of society. Although it is impossible to define these categories with any degree of precision, the terms are commonly used and understood throughout industry. It is generally accepted that a skilled worker is a craftsman whose training has been spread over several years and is formally recognized outside an individual firm; a semi-skilled worker is one who, during a limited period of training, usually between two and twelve weeks, has acquired the manual dexterity or mechanical knowledge needed for his immediate job, and an unskilled worker is one whose job requires no formal training of any kind.
If we take Joan Woodward at her word, the gap between the skilled and the semi-skilled worker is a matter of“years" of training, while the creation of “semi-skill" as against “no skill" is accomplished in “two to twelve weeks." Clearly, what we have here is not a realistic distinction but an artifact of the classifiers (which, at least in United States industry, is not reflected in wage structure or class structure). There are few if any jobs, including all those classified as “unskilled," in which the training period is actually zero. The carpenter's helper (or other craft helpers classified as “unskilled labor" because they fall neither into the craft nor into the machine-operative categories) is of little use to the carpenter until he learns a great variety of tools and materials in their various sizes and dimensions, and until he gains a familiarity with the craftsman's operations; it is unquestionable that this large section of the “laborers" grouping requires a longer training period than most operatives. Even pick and shovel work takes more learning before it can be done to required standards than many assembly or machine-feeding jobs. “Studies of final assembly line work in a major automobile company by the Technology Project of Yale University found the average time cycle for jobs to be 3 minutes. As to learning time, a few hours to a week sufficed. Learning time for 65 percent of the work force was less than a month."8 And yet assembly jobs are the most representative type of operative jobs into which there has been so great an influx in the past three-quarters of a century, and which, by a marvel of definition have produced a striking upgrading of the skills of the working population.\*
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Labor and Monopoly Capital
A Final Note on Skill
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