Music Trade Review

Music Trade Review -- © mbsi.org, arcade-museum.com -- digitized with support from namm.org
AUGUST 23,
THE MUSIC TRADE
1919
REVIEW
INDUSTRIAL TRAINING A FACTOR IN
REDUCING THE COST OF LIVING
Increased Production, Lower Prices, Less Industrial Unrest and Better Workmen
Some of the Benefits of System Devised by Col. Arthur Woods
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A plan, nation-wide in scope, has been in-
augurated by Colonel Arthur Woods, Assistant
to the Secretary of War, for factory owners and
industrial corporations throughout the coun-
try, 20,000 in number, to undertake industrial
training for their workers at the same time that
they pay them a sufficient living wage during the
period of their apprenticeship.
With the cost of living soaring daily higher
the question of efficiency in production and
manufacture has come to the front as the is-
sue of most fundamental importance in the
solution of the living problem. It is becom-
ing clear that some remedy must be found for
a situation in which thousands of American
workers, earnest, respectable men who are do-
ing their best every working day of the week,
are nevertheless attaining an output of not over
35 per cent, of their best human capacity.
worker returning from the training department
by 11 o'clock did what had been estimated for-
merly to be a day's work. In a shoe factory
in Brooklyn sixty soldiers were recently em-
ployed who had had no previous training in
shoe production and who were taken on with
the avowed intention of being put through the
training course in order to be taught their
trade. The men started at $15 per week and
nfter a training varying from three to six weeks
some of these men are earning as high as $70
a week.
Possibilities of Industrial Training
Bearing in mind these random illustrations of
the possibilities of industrial training, what is
the country doing to-day to accomplish the same
result on a larger basis? The answer can be
given briefly without noticeable inaccuracy. It
is doing just exactly nothing at all. The United
The Need of Proper Training
American factories are to-day using 6,000,000
or more workers to do what 4,500,000 men could
do as well if they were fairly trained. This
means that American manufacturers are paying
the wages of 1,500,000 workers who are really
adding nothing to the total output of the in-
dustrial system. In the manufacturing sec-
tion of New England—and few portions of the
United States are more important in the pro-
duction of our daily necessities—factory ex-
perts have stated that the factories are not more
than 60 per cent, efficient in output, merely for
want of more skilled and intelligent manpower.
This does not compare very well with a pre-
war Germany, in which individual industrial
training was so successfully operated that 65 per
cent, of the managerial and technical force con-
sisted of men who had started work as un-
skilled or semi-skilled labor.
In aggravation of the high cost of living the
entire question has been brought to a head just
now by the large numbers of soldiers returning
to civilian life from the military service. Many
of these men went to war unskilled workers, but
because of their experience have come back
with greater ambitions and larger vision. They
have the psychological start for better things.
They have the desire to improve their condition
and their earning power. But they have neither
the skill nor the means for developing the skill,
without which their ambitions cannot possibly
be realized. They must have industrial training
immediately and on a sufficiently large scale to
offer an opportunity for advancement to every
man who wants one and deserves it. These
men must earn a living wage while they are
learning and must be taught intensively enough
so that in a short time they will be able to
realize their ambitions and to increase their
earning powers.
Greater Production Means Lower Prices
That greater production means lowe"r prices
is axiomatic. That this result can be accom-
plished with those very men who are at present
classed as unskilled laborers is abundantly
proved by the experience of a number of fac-
tory owners. The superintendent of one of the
biggest metal-working establishments in the
country states that mechanics who had been
with them for two years were given one week
of training, as a result of which they doubled
their individual production. Tn another plant a
Col. Arthur Woods
States spends $700,000,000 annually on general
education. It spends $5,000 of public money on
anyone who has sufficient means to live without
wage earning in the years between sixteen and
twenty-one. But it seldom spends a single dol-
lar on making a mechanic. Where millions are
spent for a few thousand professionals nothing
is spent for the millions who produce our neces-
saries. So long as this condition persists no
remedy for the high cost of living can be suc-
cessful, because it is only by going to this
fundamental feature of the problem that any-
thing can be accomplished.
Accomplishments During the War
At the outbreak of the war the need for in-
creased productivity in the industrial system was
clearly appreciated by the country's leaders.
The United States Training Service, under the
Department of Labor, was organized to promote
training classes in industrial plants and offered
its free services to manufacturers in starting
such classes. By these means during the war
large numbers of unskilled workers were
turned into skilled workers in a short time and
the entire available fund of skilled labor was
markedly increased thereby. Not only did these
training classes produce new men, but they also
increased the level of ability of many of the
old ones and increased the efficiency of the en-
tire plant. Congress having failed to provide the
necessary appropriation for continuing the
work, this national effort has lapsed into in-
activity, with the result that to-day 20,000 in-
dustrial corporations in the United States that
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could advantageously adopt such a plan of
industrial training are doing nothing to raise
the level of their men, increase the productivity
of their plants or to increase the general level
of production throughout the United States.
The Position of the Worker
What industrial training means in terms of
advancement for the workers of the United
States can scarcely be overestimated. A great
majority of our 10,000,000 factory workers con-
front a changeless task that they do not really
comprehend and will never get a chance to mas-
ter or escape. It has recently been said that
"labor unrest at this time is an effort to secure
a recognition of personality." This is absolutely
fundamental to the solution of our industrial
and labor problems. High wages alone will
get us nowhere, because the monotony of a rou-
tine task and the lack of opportunity for ad-
vancement will not be replaced by a mere in-
crease in the weekly payroll. Men must be
given every reasonable chance not only to
improve their wages, but actually to improve
their working conditions and express their per-
sonal ambitions by having an opportunity to
graduate from the less skilled and less interest-
ing to the more skilled and more interesting type
of work.
Nor will this be a difficult matter once the
facts are clearly presented to America's indus-
trial leaders, because not only is future produc-
tivity increased, but the men more than pay for
themselves at the same time that they are learn-
ing. More and more factories are beginning
to discover that raising the level of skill of
their workers is a paying investment which
makes for contentment among their men, which
produces leaders to take charge of the work
requiring skill and intelligence and which ac-
tually increases the profits and dividends by
raising the general level of production to a
higher plane by means of increased efficiency
instead of increased expenditure. Labor, on
the other hand, is responding eagerly to this
idea because it means increased earning power
to the individual worker, independence and bet-
ter education. It makes for pride in his work
and contentment with his prospects for every
laborer who is thus given an opportunity to bet-
ter "his condition and improve his status as his
skill increases. The public, finally, sees in this
a fundamental approach toward solving the high
cost of living and completes the tripartite na-
tional approval on which the success of the
plan depends.
Applying the Plan to the Piano Trade
In discussing with The Review this industrial
plan and its application directly to the piano
manufacturer and his factory Frederick O. Per-
kins, of Colonel Woods' staff, said:
"Some people may wonder why the industrial
plan is being proposed by the War Department
and why it is the province of the Assistant to
the Secretary of War to urge American manu
facturers to adopt this plan. Tt is because with
the closing of the war it was found that the
demand for skilled labor in all branches of in-
dustry was very great and these same skilled
men were exceedingly scarce. It was seen that
in order to have these skilled men it was neces-
sary to train unskilled men in various industries
ORGANS
E5TEY PIANO COMPANY NEW YORK CITY
(Continued
on page 7)