White-collar Workers, History of

M. Prinz, in International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences, 2001

according this article; 

white colour workers are considerably less well organized than manual workers with the one exception of the public sector. 

1) Organizational Behavior

Depending on the structure of the trade union movement within the respective countries, white-collar workers tend to organize exclusively or are integrated into general unions (Behringer 1985, Bain and Pollins 1965, Bain 1972; Jenkins and Sherman 1979). In most cases union membership among white- and blue-collar workers overlaps at least to a certain degree. The main area in which both groups differ is trade union membership in general. White-collar workers are considerably less well organized than manual workers with the one exception of the public sector. Hence, their growing weight among the workforce represents one of the most important factors in the crisis of the trade union movement in developed countries in general. 

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