this is the plant of the american lead pencil company and this is the story of how labor and management here dealt squarely with some basic problems that face companies and unions everywhere the film was made here and all but two of the people you will see are actual workers or company officials it was nine hundred thirty seven the year of national labor turmoil the causes went way back but the fight actually began here with the pink slip it was the last straw fellow workers none of them were getting a square deal i tuesday in three days the plant was organized management was suddenly confronted with a unified labor for then they asked management to sit down and listen to their demands believe me when we walked into the conference room and saw all those bread cats looking down our throats we were plenty scant specially of the plant manager and missed a labor relations man they frankly didn't want one now i'd like to hope in this meeting i pointing out that the workers kept prosper unless the company prosperous that means we have to work together cooperate the man's i just remember one thing you can't pay out more than you take in what are you asking this is what we want a twenty five it was a long hard fight in the end both sides compromised the union got a nine percent raise union shop check off a cations with a grievance machinery and seniority management got a hiring and firing clause an arbitration machinery they hoped they would also get a more satisfied loyal and productive labor force neither side was completely happy the union front things should have been improved much more it was a small fire and with almost no damage two hours later it was all over but on saturday it showed up in their pay on  i'm not going to get away with it they had a long and bitter argument management felt some people were legitimately entitled to be paid others and taken advantage of the situation and gone home finally they arrived at a compromise me and the pattern was the same throughout the years the union and management battled in argued over every grievance and at least one third of the grievances went to arbitration then in one nine hundred forty they began to negotiate a new contract general strike lasted about eight weeks and completely stopped production the union committee and management conferred long hours trying a get together and i take it easy don't strain yourself some workers and some foremen to resent doctor found a girl in the packing department passing defective time she said she did it to raise her out for what he pointed out that people wouldn't pay good money for bad and if they stopped buying they'd all be out of jobs pencils would come direct from the machine it would be faster union suggestions we definitely were on the way to getting a fair day's work from bad days pay they've been working over nine years now on a fair day their pay base their productions up their wages are to the union shop steward still president of the bryson every time that phone rings he knows somebody want to report a greeting here's how the grievance machinery works today  tomorrow get the details in the committee woman and talked it over with the work in this case alan johnson was operating a machine on the floor there weren't enough of the central fold to keep one worker busy so he couldn't earn today ok john i'm going over to the other plan how about taking a walk ok day i'd like to talk about something else it's about the union in general anything the matter no nothing i just want to tell you that i never thought it would work but it was good i don't get me wrong john there are plenty of things we don't like about the i'm going to apple i'd raven's machinery takes a lot of time  gives us headaches but the way our settling our differences at production has embraced kyoto and we make suggestions that is good for both of us that's right yes both sides gain management now has no strike to stop production the workers have more enthusiasm for their jobs hourly production is up fifteen percent the company gets more productivity it gets a fair day's work the workers have more security they feel they belong but they are part of the they have a