Stamford "was changing from blue-collar industry to important corporate headquarters when I wrote the play in 1982," Mr. Karp said.

Despite the decline of traditional manufacturing and blue-collar industries due to the abandonment of protectionist economic policies in the 1980s, many of these industrial installations still exist.

The unions that once organized the great blue-collar industries now mainly concentrate on managing the pain as their members watch their jobs give way to automation or globalization.

It could be difficult for leaders who have insisted that the free market solve problems in Britain's depressed blue-collar industries to arrange more favorable terms for the financial community.

And the media, computer and business-services companies now found in the space abandoned by printers and blue-collar industries also diversify and enrich the economy, he said.

The liveliest segment of the labor movement is not in blue-collar industries dominated by workers who - according to stereotype - might be inclined to be hostile to homosexuality.

The district is also home to blue-collar industry.

Older workers in blue-collar industries suffered the greatest relative change over that time period, according to the study.

Then critics began to worry that speculation and rising real estate prices would undermine many of the remaining blue-collar industries.

The Maine AFL-CIO is dominated by unions in blue-collar industries and state government.