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THE
RMFW
fflJJIC TIRADE
VOL LXXHI. No. 25
Published Every Saturday by Edward Lyman Bffl, Inc., at 373 4th Ave., New York.
Dec. 17, 1921
8ln
10 Cents
«* 92.00 Per Year
Vocational Training in the Piano Trade
R
ECENT developments in the piano manufacturing trade of the country, and particularly in the East,
make it appear as though the question of vocational training, with a view to providing a sufficient
supply of skilled workers for piano plants, is again a matter of moment. Vocational training is not
in any sense a new subject in the trade. It has been discussed for many years, and preliminary plans
looking to definite methods for training piano workers have been presented. To date, however, with
the exception of schools for player action regulation and repair, maintained by private concerns for the benefit
of operating tuners, and at least one similar class conducted for several years in the Evening Trade School by
the City of New York, there has been nothing definitely done to bring young men into the industry and by
proper training make them available to the trade and able to realize earnings sufficiently large to keep them
within its ranks.
For some time past, and with the beginning of the Fall business revival, the problem of securing sufficient
skilled workers for a number of the piano factories, particularly in the East, has been a rather serious one, for,
although few, if any, of the plants have been operating on anything like normal capacity, there developed a
sufficient demand before September first at least to make greater production desirable.
As was pointed out by The Review some weeks ago, the scarcity of skilled workers made it almost
impossible to enlarge factory forces sufficiently to increase output to any material degree, and the result was
that in many cases orders began piling up in factories at an annoying rate even though the volume of orders
as such might be considered subnormal.
The employing executives of various piano manufacturing plants, who have made more or less extensive
investigations have found that their most skilled men in some instances have found their talents fully appre-
ciated in other lines. Capable workers in the finishing departments, for instance, have found they can depend
upon steady employment in the work of finishing and refinishing automobile bodies, and other finishers have
been able to find permanent places in casket manufacturing plants. Woodworkers—that is, employes in the mill
rooms—also went into other branches of the woodworking industry when piano factory staffs were cut down
and organizations were practically dissolved.
Those who have specialized in their efforts to recruit piano workers have in a great measure given up
hope of bringing back any of the skilled piano workers from many industries except under almost prohibitive
guarantees of steady employment and substantial wages. To train new men for skilled work is a long, slow
process, but it is admitted that some form of efficient vocational training is likely to be the only permanent
solution of the problem. It would seem that the committees representing the local and national associations of
piano manufacturers might do well to resume activities and give the matter some consideration.
The problem is one of interest to the retailer as well as to the manufacturer, because when he is ordering
on a conservative basis it is a rather vital matter for him to get pianos from the factory promptly and when he
wants them. If his orders have to be placed on file and wait several weeks before being filled, then the retailer is
facing loss in business and loss in profits.
It is this conservative policy in ordering on the part of many retailers that is largely responsible for the
manufacturers' dilemma. Failing in many instances to anticipate requirements and ordering only as immediate
necessity demanded, the retailers gave the factories little encouragement to keep operating on even a fairly
normal basis. The result was that in many cases factory forces were disorganized because skilled workers
could not be carried on the payroll indefinitely with nothing or next to nothing to do.
With factory forces once scattered to the four winds it is a heartbreaking problem to reorganize, and
it means that new blood must be brought into the industry to replace those trained workers who have settled
in other fields. Vocational training of some sort or another is the answer.