Why manual labour is making a comeback

Why manual labour is making a comeback

By Margaret Wheeler Johnson. Interviews by Susannah Snider

Published: June 27 2009 01:27

Americans have been searching for a guide out of the economic underworld into which they’ve descended (bringing the rest of us along). The candidates for escort and saviour have included Barack Obama, Fed chief Ben Bernanke, personal-finance guru Suze Orman, the state of Idaho (which has largely escaped the effects of the recession), the nation of China (which the US hopes will start sharing the burden of consumption) and, of course, Bono. Motorcycle repairman Matthew Crawford didn’t make the list, at least not until late last month, when his book Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry Into the Value of Work became a surprise hit.

“Shop class” is the American term for technical studies courses at secondary schools – classes that are fast disappearing from US curricula. The book is a protest against that sort of development – against white-collar culture and the educational system designed to populate it. Crawford, who has a PhD in political thought from the University of Chicago, takes America to task for devaluing skilled manual labour. Trade work, he argues, is more psychologically, intellectually and financially satisfying than the information-processing jobs for which students are typically prepared.

Just three days after publication, Shop Class reached number 23 on The New York Times bestseller list. And in the following three weeks, it went through five printings. When The New York Times Magazine ran a 5,000-word excerpt, readers responded on the newspaper’s website with comments like: “Without doubt the best article that I have read in 13 years. Thank-you”; “This is a wonderful, thought-provoking piece. I read it with mixed emotions: elation, admiration, envy, empathy, inadequacy”; and “You have no idea how much this article means to me. I suspect – hope – it represents the beginning of a shift in thinking.” Americans, perhaps, have found their guide.

Skilled labour has been part of Crawford’s life since he started doing electrical work at the age of 14. He picked it up again at university, to make extra money. He only began working on motorcycles in 2000, rebuilding his own 1975 Honda when he was supposed to be revising his dissertation on Greek political thought. In 2001, disenchanted with the insularity of academia, he accepted an executive job at the Marshall Institute, a conservative environmental think-tank in Washington. It turned out that his primary role there was to develop arguments about climate change that happened to be consistent with those espoused by oil interests. The work, says Crawford, wasn’t “befitting a free man”.

Crawford found he was yearning for work with real goals and tangible results – rewards he had always encountered working with his hands. So six months after joining, he left the think-tank to set up a motorcycle repair shop. As he writes in Shop Class: “there was more thinking going on in the bike shop than in the think-tank.” And he began to wonder why the rest of America hadn’t cottoned on to this. Why did the culture deem the labour of carpenters and electricians inferior to drafting memos and policy papers?

It’s a question that Britons, too, have been asking. This spring, the inventor James Dyson argued that the country’s way out of the recession depended on it becoming a place that “makes things again”. “The recession is teaching us a hard lesson,” he wrote. “Modern Britain cannot wholly rely on the financial sector, or service industries … Britain needs to invent, patent and create.” Dyson thinks the change needs to start with education. And so does Crawford. Whereas students were once required to learn vocational skills that actually interested them, Crawford argues, today, they take courses to make them competitive university candidates.

Despite his academic background, Crawford claims that not all students benefit from university study. It’s not a new idea; what’s remarkable is that Crawford escapes the charges of elitism it usually invites by offering his own experience as proof of the intellectual and emotional satisfaction manual work yields. He also notes that plumbers and electricians often earn more than graduates, partly because they have a level of job security that, in the age of outsourcing, white-collar workers no longer enjoy.

It’s tempting to liken Shop Class to Robert Pirsig’s 1974 bestseller Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Over the course of a road trip across the US, Pirsig’s narrator reflects on technology and reason through the relationship between man and bike. Crawford acknowledges Pirsig as an influence, but Shop Class is not Zen. Crawford’s metaphor is not the journey but the journeyman, the tradesman who makes his way using knowledge he has acquired from coping with physical materials. “A carpenter faces the accusation of his level, an electrician the question whether the lights are in fact on,” he writes. “Such standards have a universal validity.”

In promoting the cause of the individual craftsman, Crawford rejects the “big business” model of capitalism. But he does so when the excesses of the financial system have extended beyond the limits of what is tolerable to even staunch proponents of a free market, when many of us are ready to reconsider what kind of work is valuable. Now, Crawford writes, “it becomes possible once again to think the thought, ‘Let me make myself useful’.”

Margaret Wheeler Johnson is a freelance writer and graduate student in cultural reporting and criticism at New York University

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Danny Keane, musician, is at home with his celloThe musician
Danny Keane, age 31,
cellist and pianist

Do you have a typical day?
Every day is different. Usually I drag myself out of bed and think about doing some practice. Often, I’ll spend the day writing, and then I’ll go to a recording session, a gig or even rehearsals.

Do you like studio work?
It’s a really good way of experimenting. You can press “record” and if it sounds like rubbish, just delete it.

Doesn’t that get exhausting – play and delete, play and delete, play and delete…?
There are some people who like to do endless takes, but I think the general rule is that if you do too much, then it becomes stagnant and lifeless. It loses its initial energy and excitement.

What about improvising?
I play cello with a band called the Heliocentrics – we’re into a kind of free-groove, psychedelic jazz, which means that I’m improvising most of the time. Literally, I get on the stage and I have no idea what I’m going to play. It’s like writing an album on the spot.

What advice would you give someone who wants your job?
You gotta live it. You’ve got to live and breathe it. You have to be 150 billion per cent dedicated to it, not only with your discipline but also with your passion.

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James Beattie, gardener and collections horticulturalist at Kew GardensThe gardener
James Beattie, age 34,
collections horticulturalist,
Kew Gardens

What do you do each day?
I’ll come in and do the watering between 8am and 10am. I’ll also work on specific tasks in my area, for example, if there’s an outbreak of pests to deal with. After 10am, we work in teams, doing stuff like re-potting plants because they’re feeling a bit put down. Today, we’re doing propagation protocols, working out the best way of growing rare plants. We might also play around with soil mixes. In the nursery we’ve got 21 climactic zones, so there’s lots to experiment with.

How long have you worked as a gardener?
I used to have a job in healthcare recruitment, but it didn’t fire me with passion. I’m interested in conservation, and so gardening has more meaning to me. It does come with a pay cut, and at the end of the day, it does share many of the stresses of an office environment. Still, horticulture is pretty different from healthcare recruitment…

Not only has working with plants been proven to be therapeutic, but it’s also far more satisfying than sitting in front of a computer all day. It’s not physically exhausting but it’s very active; most of the people who work here are in pretty good shape. And, in general, you don’t get anyone shouting at you.

The plants can’t yell at you
No. They tell you when something is wrong and you just have to sort it out.

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Shane Kearney, plumber, at workThe plumber
Shane Kearney, age 25,
Go Green Plumbing

What’s it like to be a plumber?
You have good conversations. It’s not a lonely trade. You get used to other people.

What’s the most challenging part of the work?
The customers. Physically, plumbing isn’t so bad. You work in a lot of tight spaces – that can be demanding.

So it’s dealing with people that can wear you down?
You have to have patience, lots of patience. Customers don’t understand plumbing, so you try to explain that you’re not ripping them off. You have to explain to them because they don’t have a clue.

What advice would you give aspiring plumbers?
If you do a job, you have to do it properly. No short cuts. Just do the proper training. Short cuts will catch up with you in the end. There are courses out there that claim to be able to teach you plumbing in 12 weeks; it took me four years to become qualified and get my certificate.

Do people value your work?
Our loyal customers do. They have confidence in you when they send you out to a job. They know you’re not going to flood the house.

How is plumbing rewarding?
We do get a lot of good reviews. Plus there’s the fact that you’re creating something. That’s rewarding – your workmanship when you do a decent, tidy job.

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Andy Stuart, mechnic, is fixing a taxiThe mechanic
Andy Stuart, age 45,
taxi body shop manager

Why specialise in taxis?
A black cab costs £36,000 – that’s more than a middle-of-the-range Mercedes. Rather than just any Joe Blow, you’ve got to know what you’re really doing on them. It’s a specialist sort of thing.

Do you ever crave a less physical job?
I wouldn’t want to work in an office. The women aspect would be fine, but even then it would get boring because you’re seeing the same faces all the time. Working in an office, sitting in front of a computer screen, picking up the phone … that’s not my idea of a man’s job.

Why is being a mechanic a man’s job?
It’s more physical, it’s not mental. Sitting in front of a desk has to be more mentally tiring. A man doesn’t want to sit around all day staring at a computer screen.

When is it rewarding?
When you have a cab that’s been hit in the back or in the side by a bus. I mean, you’ve got to imagine when it first comes in. You look at it and say: “Oh my god, the side is pushed in, the roof’s caved in as well, the floor’s up.” But putting it all back together again gives you a good feeling.

What advice would you give someone who wants to become a mechanic?
I’d advise them to do it. You get job satisfaction – and it beats working in an office. People think working in an office is easy. I mean, it probably is, but it’s lazy, isn’t it?

What’s the worst part of the job?
Painting cabs, which are black, is boring. That’s boring on the eyes, boring on the brain. It’s a pain to paint them. It’s black, black, black, black. It’s really monotonous. How I’ve ever stuck with them, it’s beyond me.

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Set designer George Jeffery at work on a stageThe set designer
George Jeffery, age 41,
Sky Sports

Describe your typical day
It really depends where I am. If I’m in the office, I’m mostly designing on the computer. If I’m out, a lot of time will be spent building the set, making sure the lighting’s right and checking the camera shot is correct. It’s more hands-on, lifting and carrying, just building in general.

Which do you prefer?
I prefer being out in the field. It’s more my bag, really. Sitting in front of the computer doesn’t really work for me. I’d rather be out there solving problems, getting stuff done. Although the computer work is quite creative, I don’t get as much out of it as I do in the field.

Is it mentally stimulating to do the outdoor work?
For me, it is. It’s more problem-solving. It’s a different type of mental challenge.

How physical is it?
It is physical but not overly so. I’m not a builder, I’m not laying bricks or building houses. There is a physicality to it, but it’s combined with a little bit of problem-solving and a little bit of getting on with people.

What are the rewards?
Getting recognition from people in the industry. Getting to go to sports events around the world. I’m at the US Open in New York right now – if you’re a golf fan, you’d really want to be here.

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Darren Smalley, hairdresser, at work in his saloonThe hairdresser
Darren Smalley, age 40,
4th Floor, Clerkenwell, London

What’s the most boring part of your job?
I don’t find it tedious at all. I’ve been hairdressing for 20 years, and I really enjoy it. Part of it is working here – it’s so open and airy. If I worked in a factory-type place, I’d be crazy by now.

What are the big challenges?
Finding out what people want. Often it’s quite difficult for them to explain what they want. You have to use every skill to figure it out – I feel like a bit of a therapist sometimes, but I enjoy that. Sometimes I feel a bit antisocial in the evenings because I talk all day.

Do people value your work?
People rely on me quite heavily for more than just hair. From the haircut, they get more than just how they look: they get confidence. It’s quite an intimate process.

What would you advise someone who wants to go into hairdressing?
We are always looking for assistants – and it’s difficult to find them. I think it’s sad that young people don’t want to go into hairdressing. The best time to start is as a school-leaver. It’s a fantastic career and I would encourage young people to take it up.

Does any aspect of your job make you angry?
Nothing about my job makes me cross. I feel quite lucky about it. I wouldn’t trade it, even if the money were amazing. No way.