The potters herald. [volume] (East Liverpool, Ohio) 1899-1982, 1949-05-19
BY NATHAN ROBERTSON

ing employers who, since the war,
have been berating labor for lack
of productivity and for Laying
down on the job" will soon be
shown up as false prophets by of
fetal government figures on how
much the average American work
ers turns out per hour of labor.
Ever since the war ended some
employers have been resisting in
creases in wages on the ground
that labor was not producing
enough work to warrant increases.
Some charged that productivity
was much lower than before the
war-and used this as an excuse
for fighting any wage increases,
despite the fact that they were
taking profits several time higher
than before the war.
Labor was never in position to
fight back because the figures were
always in management's hands, and
the government did not have any
statistics to combat those offered
by the employers. No government
statistics were available for most
industries comparable with those
compiled prior to the war.
But this gap will be filled before
many more months. Pre-war sta
tistics on productivity (Which is
measured by comparing the pro-
duction turned out by an industry
with man-hours of labor used)
were based on the regular census
of manufactures which was taken
every two years until 1889.
During the war the census was
abandoned. There was none from
1889 until 1947. In the meantime,
some special studies of few in
dustries have been made, but they
were not comparable with the fig
ures based on the 1889 census, be-
cause the material on which they
were predicated was not compar-
able. These special studies have
shown such wide variations that
they have not proved much about
the productivity of industry as a
whole, or even the industries stud
led.
But the figures from the 1947
census are now beginning to come
in. Statisticians in the Bureau of
Labor Statistics are beginning to
work on them, and in IA few months
they will be turning out productiv-
ity figures comparable with the
pre-war figures which will make it
possible to check the veracity of
the charges by employers that
labor is laying down on the job.
No one knows, of course, what
these figures will show. But auth
critics on the subject are confident /
they will refute the charges by the
labor batting employers and show
that productivity is higher today
than before the war. The only ques-
tion is how much higher.
Some economists fear the figures
will disclose that industry has not
the advance in produc
tivity of two or three per cent a
year which has made America so =
prosperous and strong in the past
few decades. If these fears are
realized our planners will have to
reshape their programs for the
future-which are based upon the
presumption that we will continue
indefinitely to increase productivity
at the same rate. 4
The rate of increase in produc
tivity in America is one of the
most important economic facts of
our time. 1t is responsible for the
way we have outstripped the world
in production and it will determine
how much higher standards of liv-
ing we can attain in future years.
If, for instance, productivity in
creases as it has for the past few
for the next 10 years
we can expect, as the chart shows,
to have double the production per
by 1860 that we had in
1880.
If, however, the rate of increase
in productivity has dropped off
during the war and postwar per-
iod, we may fall far short of that