Evening star., 1943-04-12

mentioned labor boarding, cut backs
in schedules, improper flow of ma
terials and inefficient management
as the principal deterrents to output.
Mr.. Thomas pulled list from a
drawer in his Detroit office and gave
number of instances in the city
where he said labor was boarded.
A company with $4,000 workers had
5000 more than needed, he claimed.
Another plant employed $4,000 men.
UAW estimated that full produc-
ton was possible with 10000 An
assistant to Mr.. Thomas estimated
that $4,000 workers were boarded
in Detroit alone.
Hoarding, Mr. Thomas said, is bad
for plant morale, tends to make a
worker lazy With so many men
around doing little, the employe
on job wonders why he must
hurry.
There are other discouraging as
poets Of our war program pointed
out by Mr.. Thomas as decidedly
not conducive to extra effort One
is the irregular flow of materials
to plants. He said thousands of
workers suffered in the past from
work stoppage due to shortage of
materials. 1t is hard to convince
the worker now of the necessity for
speed when he sees the materials
pile dwindling. Mr.. Thomas also
mentioned the demoralizing effect
of contract adjustments, cutbacks in
production programs of Army trucks,
tanks and guns.
Perhaps the most common COM
plant heard from labor is that
management of the greatly expand
ed war plants has poor contact
with their employees. Personnel sec
tions OF plants now are inadequate
to handle so many workers. This
leads to frequent misunderstand-
ings. 1t is said to be particularly
| true in small factories which have
grown from perhaps one or two hun
dred men to a thousand In the
old days 'front.' office bosses knew
every employe by his first name
The personnel Office, If there is one
has not expanded with the plant
officials no longer know their men
and are unable to cope with the
situation.
In Detroit, where is centered a
sixth of Americas total war pro-
duction, nearly all industrial work.
ers are paid on day-rate basis
Wage incentive Or piece-work pay
Is non-existent except in a few
| Of o1,
only recently The automobile in
dustry, Detroit's peacetime meal
ticket, formerly used piece work al
most exclusively. Labor organized
the shops and threw out incentives,
frequently with good cause. Those
were days of peace and not too
favorable incentive plans.
Officials of spark plug COM
pany are among the many in De-
troit who would like to return to
incentive pay If only for wartime.
The plant makes ceramics for spark
plugs used in nearly every type Of
war machine motor. The firm S
larger factory completes the instru-
ment. The second factory operates
on an incentive basis Production
or effectiveness of labor in the sec
ond plant, an official said. was
about 20 per cent greater than in
Detroit.
800 Average Becomes 600.
An official of the plant said a
number of girls working machines
forming the body of spark plugs
were turning out 600 an hour, with
virtually no quantitative difference
in output of any of them. Workers
on the machines formerly averaged
800 an hour. He added production
OF $50 an hour was perfectly rea-
sonable.'
The company recently introduced
a new machine for performance of
the same operation. The official
said, 1T will do l,100 an hour easily"
1t saves some of the manual effort
required by the other machine, and
is said to be little if any more diff
cult to work. The machine was
moved into the plant for trial
spin, though the official said it was
removed after it was put out of
commission several times. When
this reporter visited the plant it
was being operated by a girl with
room to herself. Though she was
comparatively new on the job, she
was said to be averaging 1920 pieces
an hour at the time. The company
ordered other machines of the type
which will be used as a basis for a
piece-work proposition to the work.
ers.
In the labelling department of the
plant number of machines were
averaging about $4,000 pieces a day
per machine The official said the
prewar average was 100000 He
added that number of years ago
when workers were on piece work
they would doctor" the machine
belts to make them run faster
Then they turned out as many as
$4,000 day.