The sub., 1945-03-03

~AAAAASoO
 During these past three years, and more, I have often thought that q workable incentive plan would be a very fine thing, not only for the welders, but for the management as well. Ever since I first came here to work there has been shortage of welders, mean ing that production has been slowed up. Many welders have been drafted, others have enlisted, but great many have left simply because they could get more money for the same work else where. A lot of us who have stayed have felt that we weren't getting what we earned, but know ing that we were working on something pretty important to the war effort kept us here. We could see welders getting the same pay as we were while not doing any, where near as much work. Un- der an incentive plan, those who do the most work get the most money, regardless of their classi- fication.
 Such things as poor fit-ups, un- avoidable delays because of lead or generator trouble, necessary clipping, or waiting for erectors to place something close by, these things always made me lay aside as impractical any incentive plan I may have been trying to hatch out.
 Another thing that always de- railed my slow freights of thought was the problem of the guy who throws half his rods in the river, or conceals a handful in dark tank, or drops a bunch carefully into the other fellows box. These cheaters would ruin any incentive plan for the other 90%o of us.
 The above objections are still valid, of course, but when l read over the proposed incentive plan, with its different rates for differ ent types of work, I realize that, after all, these objections are only minor, and allowances can be made for them. The Company has surplus of leading men right now, and could use them for the necessary checking up on each we1der's work. Time studies have been made of all the different types of welding throughout the entire boat. Any incentive plan, to work, must be fair to the manage ment, of course.
 Under this plan every one gets his or her full days pay, just as in the past, and gets certain amount (not under 79c a lb0, depending on the difficulty of the work, for every pound of welding rod used over a certain minimum (12 lbs, I believe) per day. Pickup work would have to be shared equally by all, and the regular hourly rate paid for this work.
 One item in the list interested me very much. Frames to the in- ner hull GET. 36-Fr. 106) are down on the list at a very nice rate. It was about a year ago that the first rumblings of the great "Cromeng' battle began to be heard. The ma jor casualty in that battle was Higher Pay for Alloy Welding, who was never seen nor heard of, except in rumor, again. Oh, yes, the scrap was a partial success for us, as we haven't had to weld up torpedo forms and beveled bulk heads with the stuff since then. This very nice rate for those frames to the inner hull would give us that extra compensation that alloy welding, with its re- quirement of extra skill and pa tience, and its danger of sickness, should bring. Did someone say, "Yeah, but you gotta burn more than 12 lbs day to get the extraw With no more bulkheads with their double plates to do, and no more holes in E-Strakes to fill in with 1t, a fellow doesn't have to keep so terribly busy to burn 16 or IT pounds a day of 1t, and this isn't a
 t.