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Page Eight LUMBER WORKER

THE B.C.

March 22, 1943

Joint Production Committees Key To An
Early Victory Over Axis And Future Of
Peace, Security And Freedom ..........

Do the past week a special committee has been set
up in Ottawa to encourage the establishment of joint
labor-management production committees. This move will be
welcomed by the labor movement, which has taken the lead

the workers’ ideas to break plant
bottlenecks, to labor standards,
and to questions requiring co-
operation with outside agencies.

Gen. McNaughton

Mexico President
Cables Workers

Orders Pay Raise

in urging the government to
signal for all-out production
The personnel of the commit-

tee indicates that these joint
committees are now recognized
to be an essential part of the war
production program and are ex-
pected to play a great part in ex-
panding Canadian war produc-
tion.

M. M. Maclean, director. of In-
dustrial Relations, who will rep-
resent the Department of Labor,
is well known to trade unionists
as the former secretary of the Ca-
nadian Brotherhood of Railway
Employees.

H. J. Carmichael, co-ordinator
of production, who represents the
Department of Munitions and
Supply, has done an excellent job
in’ organizing the production of
war supplies, and has shown a
great interest in making the best
possible use of the labor and ma-
terials available.

Carl H. Goldenberg, director of
the economics and _ statistics
branch of the production division
of the Department of Munitions
and Supply, who will act as chair-
man, is well acquainted with man-
power and production statistics.

°

OINT production committees
have not been adopted nearly
as widely on this continent as in
Great Britain, Mr, Mitchell re-
ported in the House of Commons
on February 22 approximately
631 committees in Canada, func-
tioning in plants with about 327,-
$95 members. In the United
States at the beginning of Janu-
ary there were 1800 committees
in plants employing about 3,590,-
000 workers. In both cases the
figures include large numbers of
“paper” plans, some of them
clearly adopted to head of: genu-
ine bargaining relations in the
plants, and others even in union-
ized plants being little more than
organized pep meetings. In Great
Britain, the Amalgamated En-
gineering Union alone partic!-
pates in joint production commit-
tees covering nearly 1,000,000
members. As we set out on a
large-scale organization of these
committees we need to analyze
the already accumulated experi-
ence carefully to discover the ctr
cumstances most favorcbi2 to
their success, the most xatisfac-
tory forms of organ’zetion, amd
the types of activity which have

been found most useful.

e

\VIDENCE in all three’ coun-
tries indicates that coopern-
tion in production has a much
greater chance to succeel in
plants and industries which have
already achieved stable collective
bargaining relations. In tae
‘United States last July 1, at least
72 percent of the employees ‘n
plants with joint committees
were union members, while in
Britain the highly unionized in-
dustries of engineering, shipbuild-

initiate such committees, as a
for the coming offensive.
ing, building and coal mining have
develpoed most of the joint com-
mittees now in operration. The
functions of the production com-
mittee and of the collective bar-
gaining agency must be kept dis-
tinct, or the production commit
tee may lose sight of its primary
purpose of increasing production.
But the existence of a strong and
fully-recognized bargaining ag-
ency is essential to a successful
production committee because
(1) some machinery for handling
grievances is necessary, (2) union
strength remains as a guarantee
against exploitation in the name
of patriotism, (3) a strong union
gives the workers greater confi-
dence, (4) union activity brings
forward the natural group lead-
ers. Of course the existence of es-
tablished, and even of good, bar-
gaining relations does not assure
success for a production commit
tee. A recent report on United
States experience (in the “Inter-
national Labor Review” for Janu-
ary, 1943) describes two cases in
point: in one, the union workers
had not been able to separate
their production drive from their
bargaining activities, and the top
management did not take part in
the drive; in the other, the man-
agement functioned in the same
way with the production commit-
tee as with the bargaining com-
mittee, letting them come with
proposals and “negotiating” with
them.
°

TPHE form of organization has
been widely discussed. In
Britain most committees have
been set up under a national
agreement between a union and
the government or an employer's
federation, and in the most im-
portant agreements (those of the
Engineering Union) only union
members are eligible for election
as the workers’ representatives,
although they are elected by all
the adult employees of the plant
or department. The Official Plan
Book of the United States War
Production Board provides that
a union which is recognized as
bargaining agency for the entire
plant shall select the worker rep-
resentatives. :
* Where several unions have
been recognized for different
units, all are represented on the
one production committee,

The subjects dealt with by these
joint production committees range
from efforts to improve the
mroale in the plant to utilizing

The Amalgamated’ Engineering
Union puts the morale aspect as
“not a case of ‘good fellowship’
across the committee table but
of putting first things first: out-
put before profits, good time-
keeping before income tax griev-
ances, victory before
fears and interests.”

It requires much more than a
streamlined publicity campaign:
essentially it means giving every
worker in the plant a realization

of the importance of his partic

ular job to the war effort, a very

important factor in securing good
attendance and safety records and
good workmanship.

F equal importance, accord-
O ing to British reports, are
technical suggestions making use
of the knowledge and experience
of the workers to improve tech-
nical organization in the factory,
to make better use of labor, tools,
and materials, and to find new
ways of making the work easier
so more can be produced.

~ Questions of labor standards
generally belong to the collective
bargaining machinery, but as-
pects which directly affect pro-
duction, like guarantees to main
tain piece rates, incentive wage
rates and hours of work, are fre-
quently discussed from the point,
of view of production and passed
on to the bargaining machinery
for further action. Supplies of
materials, sub-contracting, re-
cruiting and transferring workers
are also frequently dealt with,
even by the joint committee of
a single plant, but solution of
such problems requires a more
advanced stage of cooperation
through industry and regional
councils.

OINT labor-management pro

duction committees do not
stand alone. They are‘ most likely
to flourish in a single plant and
throughout industry when there
is evidence of careful. planning
of production, of genuine labor
partnership, and of whole-hearted

concern for victory.

Buy Bonds for Victory!
Beat the Axis in 431)

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ment

TORONTO, Ont—In reply to a
message’ from a
Automobile Workers’ Farm. Imple-
promising full
support on the production front for
the Canadian Army Overseas, the
following message

conference

recent United

was received

post-war

from Lt-General A. G. L. Me-

Naughton by Paul Siren, UAW-
CIO representative:

“Thank you. The Canadian Army
Overseas is heartened by the mes-
sage of good wishes from the UAW-
CIO. — McNaughton,”

ClO Effort Booms

War Chest Drive

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio. — Over-
subscription of the
Community Chest War Fund was
credited largely to efforts of CIO
Unions by the War Chest officials
this week," according to officials of [buted.

STYLE

Youngstown

VALUE

MEXICO CITY.— Agreement by
all of Mexico's mining companies
on a general 10 percent wage in-
crease, originally proposed by
president Avila Camacho, averted
the threat of a general strike in
the mining industry, scheduled for
March 1. The last companies to
give in were units of the U.S-
owned American Smelting and Re-
fining Co. “The union is grateful
for President Camacho’s support,”
Juan Manuel Elizondo, secretary of
the Industrial Union of Miners and
Metallurgists, said. “The settle-
ment will spur production and per-
mit Mexico miners to help the war
effort.”

the Mahoning County Industrial
Union Council. CIO unions and
their members donated about one-
eee of the total amount contri-

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