Evening star., 1940-12-24


jay Franklin. ers are making
no objection to the wages and hours
law. The attack comes mainly from
college professors and newspaper
columnists and editors"
Col. Fleming then explained that
In the course of a recent tour
through number of airplane fac
tories working on defense contracts,
he had found that the real diff
Guilty lay with the lack of trained
foremen. One plant which had
contracts requiring it to expand it's
working force by 1900 men, was
able to take on new employees at
the rate of only 80 a day-a rate
which suggested that it would con-
sumo four years in expansion. This
was because there was a shortage
of forenen who, being classified as
executives, were not subject to the
Wages and Hours Act at all. The
same factory, he said, had found
that a reduction in the hours in
the drafting room had not brought
about any reduction in output and
that the management, which is now
working its craftsmen 45 hours a
week, is considering reducing their
hours to 40 week, with the expec-
tation of a possible increase in pro.
duction and decrease of unit labor
costs.
No Academic Reformer."
Col. Fleming is an expert on unit
labor costs. With the United States
Army Engineers he was once in
charge of dredging operations on
the Upper Mississippi River. He
worked his machinery on 24-hour
basis. during the seven months when
the river was free of ice, using four
shifts of men, and had the lowest
cost per cubic yard of silt dredged
from the channel of any one in the
service. He is no starry eyed social
worker. no academic reformer, but
a practical man who knows both
men, management and materials.
1t is his contention, and he can cite
conclusive evidence from German,
British and our own wartime expe-
rience. that underpaid or overworked
labor is not as productive or as
efficient as labor which receives fair
and considerate treatment.
In one particular, Col. Fleming
said he believed that the air.
plane industry was creating a bad
future bottleneck. At present the
industry hires men as fast as they
can be turned out by the training
program now being conducted in
various public and private trade
schools. The schools set an arbi-
trary standard for their trainees:
A man must be under Is years Of
age, must have graduated from high
school, and both of his parents must
have been born in the United States.
While there is no published rule on
the question of color, in practice no
Negro is being given employment
in the aircraft factories under the
training program The administra-
tor of the Labor Standards Act feels
that, in view of the tremendous ex-
pansion in the working force re-
quired for aircraft production under
the defense program, the factories
and the trade schools will have to
modify these restrio+ ms and that,
in any case, it is un-American to
simply because of their color. There
is no evidence at Washington, for
example, that the American Negroes
are not the most loyal of our citi-
zens. And there is no evidence that
labor efficiency in machine produce
ton ceases at 25 or is destroyed II
a man has attended college or an
engineering school.
Firm Fighter for Labor.
Col Fleming had, for number Of
weeks. the lonely distinction of be-
ing the only man at Washington
who was willing to fight tooth and
nail for the rights of labor in the
face of massive political drive to
use the defense program as an ex-
cuse to restore sweat shop condi-
tions in American industry or to
save management the trouble OF
practicing the sort of industrial eff
cheney which reduces the unit labor
cost in production.
He did this at a time when he
was subject to savage criticism from
left-wing labor forces and lacked
substantial backing from the rest
of the administration. Today, the
appointment of Sidney Hillman as
co-director with Mr. Knudsen on
the new Defense Board vindicates
Col. Fleming's judgment and tenac-
ity. My own feeling is that he
deserves promotion to the rank Of
brigadier general-the rank which
he would have been given if he had
stayed in the Army instead of ac-
cepting the call to duty at the bloody
angle of the New Deals labor re-
forms.
(poIa toS