HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Seaforth News, 1938-05-19, Page 9THURSDAY, MAY 19, 1938
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Phone 84
ON THIr LINE .
"Some can takdit—and some can't,"
said the shop foreman. His comment
referred to -work on modern industry's
assembly line, yet it was applicable to
any activity under the sun, from the
ancient job of rearing offspring to the
modern one of dying the China Clip-
per. ''The trouble is that the misfits
make the most noise," he,added.
The fellow's •remark, I thought as I
left the factory, best summed up the
impressions I had gleaned from a
week of interviewing, automobile as-
sembly line workers, and inquiry that
I .had undertaken after having read
Gene 'Richard's article, '`On the .As-
sembly Line," ,in The Atlantic Mont'lt
ly, As a man who had on three occa-
sions worked on the assembly line, I
could re -live, through Richard's prose,
all the unpleasant emotions of those
periods when I was an unhappy
square peg in a round hole.
But, as a newspaper reporter- discip-
lined to deal with facts and schooled
to mistrust the purely subjective ap-
proach, I knew that the "'real story"
in this, as in any story, is less likely
to be in the easy reporting of one
man's •view than in 'the more 'bother-
some method of matching many views
and presenting them as objectively
and impartially as is humanly possi-
b'le.
It had long seemed to me that the
truth about the se -called "evils of the
assembly line" was a story only parti-
ally reported (because the reporting
hadbeen mainly done by persons who,
possessing sufficient imagination and
sensitivity to enable them to write
well, were bound by their •posession of
those -qualities to 'be unhappy in. any
repetitive and routine activity.
In anakin•g my investigation, I ob-
tained permission to interview men on
the assembly line. Of 'the foremen I
requested only that they point out
men with reasonably long service rec-
ords and allow me to take them from
their posts long enough to answer a
few -questions.
In each instance I informed the
worker of my purpose, told him to
hide his badge if he feared to talk
THE SEAFORTH NEWS
PAGE SEVEN
with that identification in view, in
-
farmed him that 1 did not want to
!:now his name, and made it plain that
he might either answer my questions
or net.
I believe that, out Of scores inter-
viewed the .following are suffieietutly
typical to be used as a composite •pic-
ture of that average assembly line
worker who dons his work well en-
ough to mernajn on the payroll, who
writes no subtjective dissertations
about his work, and whose presence
makes it ,possible -for one company to
be proud of figures -which indicate
that, out of a personnel of nearly 90,-
000, the past year's average of daily
"quits" is 210, including those who quit
because Death never takes a holiday.'
Roy is 49 years old, and ,has been
in the same 'oomparty for 128 years.
For the past ten years, his job 'has
been that of . "putting new men
through the paces," "I've taught men
from af11 walks of life," he said. 'Some
of them, are too high-strung to work
on the line. •I•t's easy to spot them.
They tighten +up :inside like a 'watch
that's wound too tight and they ,can't
get 'going. Most of the time you can
correct it by putting +them somewhere
else. Sometimes a quiet talk does the
trick, We have had cases where men
looked like they would be too ner
vous' for the job ,when they started
and then surprised us -by getting to be
real good, so good that they kicked
when we tried to shift them."
•And then, unintentionally, Roy es-
tablished management's selfish inter-
est in preventing "deadly monotony,"
"You see," ,he said, "we like to shift
men around because that makes them
more valu-able. We .figure a man who
can do several operations is worth
more to us,"
John, a Mohawk Indian who gradu-
ated •from 'Carlisle, is one of those
Whom Roy said foremen like to "shift
around, Aged 411, he has been 118
years in the shop, about ten of them
"son -the line," He was the only man I
encountered on the line who had read
the Richard article. His comment: "I
think he was out of place on the line.
If he finds his kind of work, I think
he'll admit he was out of place."
"This thing is silly," Bald Ben, a
minor plant official, after I had given
him the (Richard article. -"If I -could
write, d could match this with as vici-
ous a description of a railway mail
clerk's life. Before I came here I pok-
ed letters into ;pigeonholes for 12
hours a day in a rolling, rocking car.
I can't conceive of any deadlier mono-
tony than that."
George, 'who is 713.has been "in pro-
duction" et one plant for :214 years. He
said he feels "Pike a 30 -year-old" at
the day's end and spends his leisure
"visiting around" with friends and his
two married •children, "Sometimes I
go to shows nights and sometimes I
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ON'1'ARLO.
,joist- sit around and talk and drink
beer. I done all kinds of jobs on this
here line," he said with a boastful
note, "I never seen .one yet that would
drive a man nutty unless he was nutty
to begin with. Of course Scan see how
a mart would hate monotonous work
I don't like it myself I did it once. T
worked for the express company. I
was ooh toaous and mighty heavy
work. I'I1 take this any -day."
Stan was next. He is '415', has spent
85 years -on the assembly 'fines in one
plant. "It's all one to me where d
work," he said, "as long as it's on the
line."
Asked if he felt exhausted at the
end of the day, he grinned and shook
his head. He -'owns his home, drives
his own car to work. That drive "clear
r,
across town th augh traifi•c," Inc said,
"is harder than work here" Stan also
has a garden. "And right now," he
added, pride lighting up his features,
"I'nt building an addition on my
house myself," That work, he said, is
done evenings and 00 his two days of
leisure each week.
Fred, who is 511' and has been on the
assembly line for 25 years, provided
another clue as to why soave men Feel
that this work is not deadly monoton-
ous. "How can it ibe." he asked
"when the operations are being ,chang-
ed all the time?'
To illustrate, Fred explained that
his present job—the assembly of the
transmission cover—required 30 min-
utes for one man handling 14 tools
five years ago. "'We began to figure
how- to -do it easier," he said, "and by
changing 'operations we got it organ-
ized so that three men -do it now in
ten minutes with the '114 tools distri-
buted among us three. Were still try-
ing to make the job easier, so' how can
it 'get monotonous if its changing all
the time?"
"Whenever you find a man on a job
he don't like," he added; ."he ain't the
man for thea'job. That's all there is to
that,"
The man called "Shorty" might well
be a whining 'burden to society, for
his legs were crushed in a \lichigan
mine. He is 4156 married, and the sole
support of three children. Although
locomotion is painfully laborious, Inc
Inas :been five years on -the motor as-
sembly line and, according to his fore-
man, "hollers like heck when we try
to ,get 'hint into an easier job,"- The
proffered "easier" jobs, said Shorty.
are not easy for him. "I've learned to
make every move count," he said, "so
1 never have to hurry, no natter how
fast the line moves."
Al is 32 and has spent six years on
the final assembly line -0'on all kinds
of jobs." He owns his own hone, has
a garden, and hopes to educate his
two sons. "I want them to get a bet-
ter education than I got," he said.
Asked if he would like them to do
this kind of work, he replied, 'They
might do worse. I can think of a lot
of worse jabs,"
Al has a basement workshop and is
proud of the fact that he makes all his
car repairs. He reads newspapers and
magazines—"Mostly light stuff," h6
said.
Inquiries indicated that there is lit-
tle variation in apparent -dissatisfac-
tion in "productive" and "non-produc-
tive" jobs. The number of requests
for transfers, I found, is proportion-
ately the same among both groups
of workers, Although .most productive
tasks are of the type called monoton-
ous because they involve much repeti-
tion, actually less than ten percent of
the total employes work on moving
assembly lines. Moreover, many non-
productive tasks, such as routine cler-
i:al jobs, might be called monotonous
-tut are seldom the subject of heated
,:ontroversy.
This -was illustrated by Bert, a man
u 5%3, doing rather heavy work on
•he rear axle sub -assembly line. Be-
•ause he suffers front neuritis, Bert's
foreman took hint off the job recent -
`y. but allowed him to return "be -
tame," Bert said, "I feel more at
home here."-
Bert
ere."Bert has two daughters. One of
them works in the payroll depart-
ment, '"She thinks my job must be
retty dull," he said, "but I wouldn't
have her kind of a job as a gift. It
•'dust be awful monotonous to sit at a
iesk alt day- and fiddle with a lot of
figures." -
Bert's recreation is his garden. "I
raise some pretty fancy ,dahlias,' he
said. He was launching into a -discus-
don of dahlia culture when -the fac-
tory din was •punctuated by one of
those oon'oerted yells of the men on
the line—a yell which 'began inexplic-
ably With one man's howl and, mount -
ata into a concerted -clamor, faded out
as inexplicably as it started. Bert was
asked to explain.
'I don't know why they yell," he
said. "It's mostly the young fellows
who do it. I used bo do it myself, but
I don't 'know why any more than I
know' why all the roosters start crow-
ing when one rooster lets 'go. Maybe
it's 'because you feel 'good.."
Near by I :discovered Bill, a polite
rolysooty fellow. aged 'til, ,with the
kind of jab that the average man pic
tures as typical of the a•s-semtbly line.
Bill was 'fitting nuts on bolts—end-
lessly, and -without profanity,
"'Monotonous?" said .Brill, squinting
owlishly through shell -rimmed glass-
es, "Gracious, vol This is child's
play," Bila said -he had been -doing' this
sort of thing since 11L91135 when he
rented his farm near Yale, 'Mich., and
decided to 'Move to town and try a
hand at factory work."
'I'd e'a'ch rather 'do this than
farm," he said. "'Work's not so Chard.
Less monotonous. Newer hours. And
you get some enjoyment mat of tile.
'Evenings and Saturdays and Sun-
days, the 1Missus and I pile in the car
and drive around and visit the four
kids scattered over the state."
For recreation Bill reads the news-
papers and listens to the radio,
"While my hands are doing this job,"
he said; "'I can think about what I
read and what I hear_d." The din was
deafening near Bill. 'but he said he
hadn't noticed the noise.
Yes, -Inc had seen men who screwed
nuts son bolts until they got all tight-
ened up in a knot. "But," he added,
'I've seen some of them do that and
then get a holt on 'themselves and
level off, If a man can't •get along
with his job, it's not the job's fault, I
guess; it's the man who's wrong." -
Saim is ,5114 He has been on the as-
sembly line 28 years, His job is a
tedious gathering together of ten
wires into a' metal holder. Despite his
age, Slim can, according to his fore-
men, "assemble manifolds faster than
any two<•rnen we've ever tried."
Watching Slim is like watching a
nicely articulated machine—no waste
effort, no superfluous 'movement, fas-
cinating rhythm. His fingers are as
nimble as Fred Astaire's feet. Ex-
tremely taciturn, his only comment
was, "I wouldn't trade jobs with any
man I ever met"—in addition to the
bare facts that he has two sons, one
of whom graduates this June. and
that he gets Itis recreation working
around his home. which he owns, and
in driving and repairing, his car.
Gus is 514, has been on the line for
35 years, and gets his recreation driv-
ing his car and summering in his
lake -side cottage equipped with a
greenhouse which he built himself.
His job is that of filling in wherever
men drop out of the line.
"I wouldn't say the lines a man -
killer," he said, "I've seen men wino
didn't belong on the job they were
trying to hold down, and I've seen
them do a good job when they were
transferred to some other operation.
Sometimes a big -husky man can't
take it, and a man who looks like a
weakling makes good in the Sanas
place. The trouble comes when the
right job and the right man don't ;et
together. I think there aren't many
men who can't be fitted lm some-
where."
This belief that the miait is a rar-
ity is shared by'Gus's foreman, who
said, "What management needs mos•
to guard against is the tough straw -
boss with a corporal's complex. The
1•ussian kind of a fellow whose auth-
trity gees to his head can raise mora
'rouble in a .',hop in fa e minutes than
you can correct in a year,"
And that comment is the explana-
tion of industry's basic fault, as se'
'orth by 4\-illiam •hnudsen, whc'
declares that management's %tors:
problems arise from the widening o?
the gulf between itself and the nett.
\Ianagenten't has to find mean: 1a'
restoring the kind of contact with
nen that prevailed in the little slims,"
aid this transplanted Dane who ros,
0 managements pinnacle "ia the as-
:em:bly line,
Henry 'Ford, too, understands tha
vas production has its' evils. to
minting out how mass production
had furnished man for the first time
o history with the tools that were
capable of banishing the threat of
permanent want forever, he said:
"Batt nothing of read value has ever
been produced- without pain. There
are always injustices that need cor-
recting."
BROODINNG YOUNG CHICKS
°Experimental Fa -.115 No:e
Among the controllable factors gov-
erning success in the 'brooding of
young chicks, the brooder tempera-
ture is- one of first importance. Mo.•
chicks are lost each year through
chilling than from any other cants
haling of young chicks is usua';
caused by insufficient heat in th'
'treader, but it may also result if ex-
:essive heat is -supplied for a sitar'
oeriod. Draughty 'brooding quarters
will 'also cause -chilling, Digestive
'rouble, followed by diarrhoea are tln
-Daimon symptoms of -this ailment.
There is no effective medicinal remedy
for chilling and a heavy :mortality us-
ually results. Preventive measures
must be depended .upon solely inn
mvaiding these heavy .losses.
For economical and successful
brooding of chicks, the -brooder 'house
must he well. aanstructed, and should
also be insulated. ,Double ,boarded
walls with inter -linings of 'bud'itug
paper ere advisable. The 'ceiling, un-
'ike that of the standard poultry
house, should be matched l,nnnber to
•prevent the escape of heat. The floo
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should be well oonstru'cted to prevent
the entry of draughts. 'Poorly •con-
structed or malke=shift'buildings in ad-
dition dttton ' to being inefficient, are the
most eatpensive kind to heat. The lm -
proved results together with the. sav-
in'g in fuel makes the well construct-
ed !broader house a good investment.
For most farms the ![fat roofed type
of colony house, about ten feet by
twelve feet, is the most setisfaotory
kind to 'bui'ld. A 'house of this Iklnd
can be 'novel readily and used for
brooding during the spring, and as a
shelter in the :field: for the growing
birds during the summer months.
When used as a brooder, It should be
located 'conveniently close to the
house in order that' the necessary at-
tention can readily be +given 'to the
care of the young chicks, and more
particularly to the stove. A site should
be selected that is protected from
wind's,, and the houseshould be well
banked to prevent 'floor draughts.
For -brooding early hatched 'chicks,
the most suitable type of brooder
stove is -one that barns coal, With a
coal -stove (brooder, the amount of
heat supplied is sufficient to maintain
the required temperature during cold
weather. 'While hard nut -sized -coal is
the most dependable fuel for brood-
ers, most of the stoves are •capable of
burning either hard or soft coal, At
the experimental farm, Brandon, the
average daily cost of fuel per 'brooder
during the past three seasons, lasing
hard nut Boal .at a 'tort of 520 per ton,
was 115 -cents.
The stove s'h'ould Inc operated •for
several days before the chicks are
!'laced in the brooder. By doing this,
the house becomes thoroughly warm-
ed and the operator -becomes accus-
tomed to regulating the stove. Most
broader stoves are equipped with'tlter-
nnostats for controlling the check
draught. In ..addition to this control
mechanism, it is advisable to suspend
a thermometer from the edge of the
hover so that -the temperature of ti'
floor is shown. A self-recordinu ther-
mometer is the best kind to es for
this purpose. Dining the first s-zs't of
brooding, the floor temperature neuter
the edge of the hover should be about
1100 degrees IF. After the first we: k,
the temperature can 'Inc gradually 'o
ered, Chicks tint hate an edeni t•'
supply of heat •usually arrange them.
selves in a cir+le at a comfortable ,l' -
tance from the stove. Chicks when
too cool are restless and noisy,
An uneven temperature is equally
as harmful as 'an inadequate sue ''y
of heat to young chicks. Every ore-
cautian should be taken to prevent
the broader temperature 'from fluctu-
ating A well controlled 'broader tem-
perature is -of prime importance
the prevention of heavy losses whet
the chicks are young. Brooder term,.
eratnre is also an important factor in
preventing the chicks from crowding,
which is frequently a forerunner of
unthriftiness and high mortality.
Bright Crop Prospects
Soil moisture conditions in 'Eastern
Canada- are quite favourable for sprin n
operations, and the winter has been
kind to 4a15 wheat, ' clover. pastures.
fruit trees, (bushes and shrubs.
The outlook for crops is nt:' •in
'brighter than a year ago and the rick
of crop -destroying weather in smur,er
is mucin Tess in the east than in the
west. The winter of !119316-1317 was marl
on winter wheat and clover in the
east. There was 'little snow and much
raiin. Fields were 'covered -with ice.
During the past winter there has
been ample snow• to "protect the plants
which must 'survive the winter. In ad-
dition, spring has -opened up well with -
lots of :rain.
Giren a reasonable break in the
next .few months •eastern farmers,
gardeners and fruit -growers look for-
ward to a brighter and more produc-
tive year in 1938.
The Power of Credit --Chis is a
wonderful suit of 'clothes I art
wearing," '
'It looks like at ordinary piece ea -
goods to ve,"'•
"What I mean is, the wool teas
,grown in Australia, the cloth woven
in New England, time thread was
made in Britain, the 'suit w•as made
itt New Yerk, and the dealer T purch-
ased it fretrt has his store in Illinois."
'What's strange -about that?"
"Why, 'it's '.a wonder that so many
"eople can -make a living out of
something that I've never paid for,"`
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