The man who coined the term knowledge workers differentiated them from manual workers. Management guru Peter Drucker coined the term "knowledge worker." In his 1969 book, The Age of Discontinuity, Drucker differentiates knowledge workers from manual workers and insists that new industries will employ mostly knowledge workers.
2 is correct. The democracy is that of multiple workers, so workers is plural. Because of that, the apostrophe applies to the plural form and is therefore after the s. If the democracy was the "property" of a single worker, then it would be that worker's democracy.
A Wikipedia article contains skilled, unskilled, semi-skilled, non-skilled and highly-skilled, as well as "Obama Immigration Order to Impact Millions, Includes Provisions for High-Skilled Workers".
I have been trying to find a word to describe someone who routinely abuses their workers, and perhaps even more than that, scorns them and sees them as inferior.
Like ' [anything] contributor' doesn't sufficiently preclude non-employees and 'line' workers doesn't seem to cover people like journalists. Davo's suggestion is looking like my best useable option in the time I've got.
In English, there is no single umbrella term systematically used for workers employed by the government (unlike the word "fonctionnaire" in French or the terms "funcionario" and "funcionario público" in Spanish). The various terms that may be used are: public/civil servant, public official, senior/minor [government] official, state employee, government/public worker/employee, functionary. But ...
Training is teaching, or developing in oneself or others, any skills and knowledge or fitness that relate to specific useful competencies. Training has specific goals of improving one's capability, capacity, productivity and performance.