Industrial and Organizational Psychology, 9(1), pp 114–216 March 2016. Copyright © 2016 Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology. doi:10.1017/iop.2015.123 Commentaries Who Are These Workers, Anyway? Tracy L. Griggs Winthrop University Lillian T. Eby, Cynthia K. Maupin, Kate M. Conley, Rachel L. Williamson, Olivia H. Vande Griek, and Muriel G. Clauson The University of Georgia The focal article by Bergman and Jean (2016) raises an important issue by documenting the underrepresentation of nonprofessional and nonmanage- rial workers in industrial and organizational (I-O) research. They defned workers as, “people who were not executive, professional or managerial em- ployees; who were low- to medium-skill; and/or who were wage earners rather than salaried” (p. 89). This defnition encompasses a wide range of employee samples: from individuals working in blue-collar skilled trades like electricians and plumbers to police ofcers, soldiers, and call center repre- sentatives to low-skill jobs such as fast food, tollbooth operators, and migrant day workers. Because there is considerable variability in the pay, benefts, skill level, autonomy, job security, schedule fexibility, and working condi- tions that defne these workers’ experiences, a more fne-grained examina- tion of who these workers are is necessary to understand the scope of the problem and the specifc subpopulations of workers represented (or not) in existing I-O research. In this commentary we examined the samples included in the focal ar- ticle and coded each in terms of a wide range of job, occupational, wage, sociodemographic, and family characteristics. This analysis provides a more nuanced understanding of who these workers really are, highlights the spe- cifc types of workers that are underrepresented in I-O research, and allows Tracy L. Griggs, Department of Management, Winthrop University; Lillian T. Eby, Cynthia K. Maupin, Kate M. Conley, Rachel L. Williamson, Olivia H. Vande Griek, and Muriel G. Clauson, Department of Psychology, The University of Georgia. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Tracy L. Griggs, De- partment of Management, Winthrop University, Rock Hill, SC 29733. E-mail: griggst@ winthrop.edu 114