The potters herald. [volume] (East Liverpool, Ohio) 1899-1982, 1942-07-02

LOndOn.-A thick wad of typescript
lies on my desk. II embOdies, as TO
39/1OOths of its contents data collected
by the Amalgamated Engineering Union
which are confidential as between the
Union and the British Government. A
year ago the TniOn-the largest Union
in the engineering and allied trades
instituted an Enquiry into Production.
1t covered plants employing practically
full picture of the war trades as re-
vealed in detailed reports giving both
the factors which have made for in
creased production and the causes of
hold-ups.
a most interesting section of the
document deals with the activities OF
the Joint Production Committees. This
! section shows that by the end of
March this year, nearly One-fOurth Of
the establishments reporting had set
up works committees. This might seem
a rather small number. But analysis
shows that i'm the biggest plants, EN-
ploying 10000 workpeOple or more,
there are works committees in One-haif
of them; and in the next largest group
of plants, employing between 5000 and
10000 each, the percentage of firms
which have set up works committees is
1880 of the total number in the
group.
More i'm the Big Plants
The report emphasizes the fact that
there is a marked tendency for high
er proportion Of the big plants to set
up committees. Another significant fact
mentioned in the report is that these
works committees are more numerous
in the armaments and aircraft indus
tries than in the shipyards; which sug-
gests (the Union says that the newer
type of industry is more accessible to
new ideas and new methods than the
older factories.
Once the idea caught on, the number
of works committees multiplied with
astonishing rapidity Out of typical
group of 100 committees, twO-thirds OF
the total came into existence between
I
Two very instructive conclusions are
emphasized in the report. One is that
what it terms social incentives to pro-
ductiOn" have not yet received ade-
qllate. attention. Public consciousness
has awakened slowly To the fact that
the industrial war effort, more particu-
larly in the war trades, is inducing
great, and sometimes heroic, sacrifices
but there are (says the report) no we'll
known faces of engineering workers
and socially prominent persons are
by press and cinema: there are no
decorations for them unless they hap
pened to have been prevented from
work by particularly nasty "blitZ.
| But there are hundreds and thousands
OF engineering workers (men, and
women too) with keen wits and strong
faces who should be known to the
whole world as the stars" of real life
the men who hold the key to victory
in this engineers war.
The Workers Conviction
| The other conclusion drawn from the
inquiry is that the wider political and
military aspects of the war effort play
an exceedingly important part in the
outlook of the organized workers. The
feeling that they have been called upon
to 'out-prOduce" Hitler has been rein
forced by the demand for the opening
of offensive action in Europe. The sus-
gestion of the new Minister of Produc-
tion (Mr. Oliver LyttletOn) that there
must be a complete fusion between
military plans and thought and pr0duc-
tion plans and thought" means great
deal to the workers. LIT implants in
their minds the conviction that their
work in the tank, aircraft and arma-
ments industries is being consciously
directed towards definite end-the
defeat of the NaZi forces in offensive
military operations.
But l must not quote further from
| this report not even to develop the