The Waterbury Democrat., 1944-01-20

detail why every shift in employ ment and production is made. And if such explanations are not made the misunderstanding will be null tiplied into a postwar confusion that will be far worse than any thing developing in wartime.
 A case in point developed at the end of the year in Cleveland, Ohio, when Thompson Products, Inc, an nounced layoffs for 1900 employees and shortening of the work week for 14,500 others. cutting them back from 13 days work in each two weeks to five and a half days a week. This welcome little New years greeting came because of a sudden, sharp cutback in orders for aircraft values and parts. The Thompson management announced that it had no advance notice of the cutback, the information con- ing indirectly from the aircraft engine builders who held the prime contract.
 On its face, this situation sounds completely cockeyed. Why, at this stage of the war, should there be any cutback in airplane engines? With aircraft production goals for 1914 set far above production in 1943, why should there be any lay offs and reductions in hours in any aircraft plant in the country? To the employees in the Thompson plants affected by this cutback, the situation undoubtedly did not make sense, and if they were told no more than was in companys an- nouncement, it no doubt caused a lot of needless worry.
 LOOKS QUEER. BUT ISN't
 A check-up in Washington re- vealed what had happened. The cutback had been ordered because the Army had all the engines and parts for training planes that it would need for the duration of the war. There was no need for mili- tary secrecy in this. This, in fact, was bad news for German and Japan. It could have been broad cast to the Axis, without revealing a single production figure, ffiust to let the super-races know that all this American productive capacity that had been going into training planes could now be concentrated in the production of combat planes. It could have been handled as a pat on the back to the employees, congratulating them on having completed big war job. It was a production victory. It was handled like defeat. It left 16,0O0 workers with bad tastes in their mouths.
 This thing that happened at Thompson Products is going to be repeated thousands of times in greater and less degree, all over the country, in the next few years. In the Detroit area alone, the end of the war will mean layoffs for perhaps half of the million and a quarter workers now in war pro- duction.
 The Thompson Products case merely points up what is going to be necessary if these cutbacks are to be handled intslligently, first by good government in scheduling the contract cancellations, second by good management in planning well for reconversion to postwar pro- duction, third by good labor rela- tions and good public relations in making sure that everyone con- cerned has a clear understanding of what is happening and why it is necessary. If ever the country had an issue which required mass edu- cation to avoid panic. this is it. NO UNEMPLOYMENT
 PROBLEM NOW
 Right now, the manpower recon- version problem provides no great difficulty. There is still a shortage of workers in nearly every industry. Overall employment is still climb ing. An optimistic view is that it will reach a peak about mid sum- mer. tl.en carry along at an even level till the end of the war. Then watch for the drop. It can be a nose dive and crash, or parachute descent with happy landing.
 Such spotty unemployment as now develops from cutbacks is causing no great malajustment Working wives who took war jobs out of patriotism are going back to their families. old men back to their rocking chairs, youngsters back to their schools-and liking it. There are other jobs for most of those who want them and need them. The obvious need is to plan and to manage the job shifts so there will be a minimum of unem- ployment. That requires a tremen- dous amount of intricate doing.