@ AUS. labor view

it travels automatically from one
opération to the next.

Second is the greatly develop-
ed use of “feedback” controls,
made possible by recent ad-
vances in glectronics. It is an
endless process of automatically
“adjusting,” “guiding” and. “cor-
cesting” machines, already ap-
plied in many fields.

Third, Baldwin and Schultz list-
ed the recent development of
special purpose calculating mach-
ines capable of performing the
most complicated mathematical
operations and streamlining work °
that requires great staffs of re-
searchérs and clerks.

These are’ many examples of
automation already in operation
in auto plants, oil refineries,
radio, steel, machinery and other
manufacture; in printing (like
automatic news transmission di-
rectly to an automatic linotype),
communications (automatic tele-
phone exchanges) and even in
the building trades (ike the
gigantic automatic concrete mix-
er in Cleveland that pours out
ready-mixed material into trucks
that haul it to the building site),

CIO and United Auto Work-
ors pamphlets on automation give

a description of Ford Motor Com-
pany’s three year old automated
engine plant in Clevéland. It has
a 1,500-foot automated line that
takes a rough six-cylinder block
casting through 500 operations,
seldom touched by hand, to a
finished form. The result: 154
-engine blocks in an hour requir-
ing 41 persons in place of 117.

*

As Donald R,. Campbell of
Massachusetts Institute of Tech-
nology told the CIO conference,
the idea of automation “germin-
ated and came to fruition” dur-
ing the war economy. The de-
velopment of electronics especial-
ly was a big factor. t.."

The pressure for a rapid out-
put of war materials in the face
of declining production manpow-"
er in the war days; the outpour-
ing of countless billions by the
_ government for construction of
new plants and new production
lines at costs no private corpo-
rations could afford or risk, was
really the experimental phase for
the private industries now rush-
ing to apply those tecliniques in.
every conceivable field to raise
profits to new heights.

Significantly, ‘the rush to auto-
mation picked up steam when the
rush to grab the “deferred” post-

‘war market began. = * ©

The race became even more in-
tense when the postwar market
spent itself and the ugly head of. .
depression was raised in 1949 and
again in 1953-54. Competition to
hog the shrinking market sharp-
ened, as in the auto industry.

As William Newbury, Chrysler
vice-président, told the Society /
of automotive Engineers last Jan-
vary, “in the big economic’ pic-
ture, the economics of automa-

tion are harsh, but simple; auto-. .

mate oF die.” :

Automation sharpened  cut-
throat competition; speeded the
trend of business failures. They '
are now’ the highest in U.S. his-
tory, and business mergers are
taking place at an. unprecedent-
ed -rate.

*

The brunt of the effects of
automation. and further modern-
ization fall on the shoulders of
the workers. Automation experts
claim those displaced by the new

’

technique?

“mation.

techniques will find work in new
fields, especially in non-produc-
tive servicing and distribution of
products, and that we're even
heading toward a “labor short-
age.”

But they cannot explain why
U.S. government statistics show
2,000,000 more unemployed than
in 1953. U.S. steel production is
currently far above a year ago,
tut 75,000 fewer workers are em-
ployed. The US. auto industry
shows a similar trend.

Many skills are being wiped
out — for good. ,Many of those
eliminated by the new Franken-
stein have no hope of getting
back to the trade they know, or
even the same industry. They
are victims of something new:

not just machines that dispense .

with muscular power, but devices"
that can guide, perceive, calcu-
late, correct and test to a pre-
cision no human eye or touch
can meet.

And the trend is only at an
early stage. The realities are al-
ready facing labor with sufficient
force to emphasize the threat
that hangs over working people.

General Electric and automa-
tion advocates in general try to
compare those who express fear
of automation with the machine-
smashing Luddites of the 18th
century. They don’t really ex-
pect the unions to resort to ma-
chine-wrecking, but they seek to
impress the people with the con-
cept that it is as useless to try
to. “disturb” the trend with any
kind of program as it was to
smash machines.

Ironicall¥, some of the most
reactionary minds have suddenly
begun to style themselves “pro-
gressives.” And they call the
unions “reactionary” for suggest-
ing that some of the benefits of
automation should come down to
the workers in the form of short-
er hours, guaranteed wages or
employment and higher wages.

*

» Fenry Ford I, who inherited
the late “King Henry’s” mental-
ity, told the recent U.S. news-—

paper publishers’ _convention:

“T, for’ one, am highly im-
patient with the reactionary
thinking of some union leaders
who stand resolutely against
progress, who resist the intro-
duction of new machine meth-
ods ,who seek to preserye obso-
lete trades and skills, who gen-
erally are wedding to the mean
‘4nd miserly concept of a mature
economy ‘that’s. going nowhere
— in short, the advocates of
guaranteed annual stagnation.”

Where are the price reductions
the automation experts say will
inevitably come with the new
The US.
ment’s own cost-of-living index,
which has hardly changed in
nearly three years, is~ evidence
enough that it is the monopolists
who hog the advantages of auto-

The consumer gets
nothing. x2 sftee

The real issue in the debate
over automation is not whether
technological advancement is de-
sirable’ The issue is the pro-
gram labor and allied groups. in
the population are beginning to
develop for prevention of some
cf the unwanted consequences
of automation and for the spread
of its benefits to all the people.

@

%

This is the first of two articles
by George Morris presenting
a U.S. view of automation:
The second article will
appear in our July 8 issue.

govern- |

‘

~ Soviet workers, like those in this Moscow ball-bearing plant,
tion, for in the USSR higher productivity of labor sp
its costs and brings about the conditions necessary

crease in real wages.

eeds the rate of growth
for a systematic reduction of prices an Gl

— 5
es reduces

2 ae

@ Automation: A British labor view a

series of stations for turning,
boring, grinding, grooving and
polishing. : :

Then in a chemical section they
are degreased, washed, -tinplated
and polished again... After final
inspection (to a ten-thousandth’
of an inch—and with only four
percent rejects, at that) the pis-
tons are automatically greased,
wrapped in parchment paper,
packed in boxes of six and stack-
ed ready for dispatch. — ey

With 3,500 pistons produced
every 24 hours, this works out at
less than four man-minutes per
piston. Production cost is cut to
one-half, manual work to one-
sixteenth, and-total factory staff
te one-quarter. And, it is said,
the maintenance staff spend most
of their time playing chess.

*

Automation has been seriously
applied for only eight years. In’
the future, there is no doubt that
complete automatic factories can
be established in many branches
of production, starting with the
raw materials, automatically pro-
cessing and assembling them, so
that human hands are only
needed to grasp the finished pro-
duct. ' ; ;

The automatic production lines
introduced in some British, U-S.
and Soviet plants are only. the

. beginning.

We are still a long way from
an automatic plant which will
make all the 4,000 parts used in
a modern automobile, bring them

-together in the right places, as-»

semble them and deliver the car
ready to dgive away. .

Even when parts are assembl-
ed by hand—by workers along-
side conveyors—the problem of

‘bringing components to the right

places at the required time is a
difficult one.

- To deal with this problem,
Austins has embarked on an am-
bitious scheme for controlling the
movements of the various parts
by a punch-card system.

: Only a small part of this scheme
is now working, but the ultimate

‘aim is that every individual car

will start life as a pattern of

‘holes punched in a card. The

holes will specify exactly what
components are required.

A stack of cards representing
the production schedule will then
be fed to a machine, which will
read the patterns, and by elec-
trical connections will automatic-
ally release all the components
in such a way that each arrives
at its assembly point exactly
when wanted. :

Let us imagine this method ex-
tended to the point where every
little screw and every major cast-
ting starts its life at just that
moment which will ensure that

it can smoothly pursue its com-
plicated journey through the
plant until at last all the parts
needed to make a car have been
assembled in their correct places
without hitch or delay.

Such a vast system is beyond

the capacity of the Hollerith poverty, a world oi plenty of

punch-card system, now being in-
troduced at Austins. But it is
trobably well within the reach of
an electronic brain.

Let us assume that it is, that
all the individual parts are also
produced by automatic machin-
ery, and also that the assembly
of the parts has been made auto-
matic. :

Then—though in barest outline
-—we have a vision of the auto-
matie factory as it may appear
in the not-too-distant future.

The control apparatus will be
an electronic brain, fed with the
production schedule, issuing auto-
matic instructions that would en-
sure that all department work
in step, and that every one of
the 4,000 items that constitute a
car is made when wanted and de-
livered as required to the point
where it must be joined to other
parts, :

The

kept constantly informed about
how the machines were behav-
ing. It would register break-
downs (or better still, anticipate
them by keeping an eye on the
temperatures of bearings and the
dimensions of ‘parts produced);
and it would notify the mainten-
ance men to take appropriate ac-
tion. :
_ There would also be the high-
ly specialized maintenance staff
of the electronic brain, as well
as the mathematical -technicians
charged with:translating the pro-
duction, schedule into terms that
the brain can understand.

And behind all this there would
be the machine-builders, the ma-
chine designers and research
staff constantly looking for more
efficient ways of doing things.

*

What will these changes mean
for the workers.

Modern mass-production meth-
ods have condemned millions of
workers to mind-deadening, repe-
titive jobs, and -have in many
cases driven out the craftsman.

‘Automation can have. the op-
posite effect.‘It can eliminate the
dull repetitive jobs, and create
the need for a highly skilled,
highly educated working class,
capable of controlling, and using
the complex machinery of the
automatic factory.

At the same time, the coming
automatic age can greatly reduce
hours of work and free most of
the people most of the time to
undertake creative activities —

PACIFIC TRIBUNE — JUNE 24, 1955 —

“brain” would also be®-

whether that means scientific © \
ploration, -the enj oyment imply
creation of works of art or $
making beautiful gardens: — ay
So automation could M*"
abundance of all the Pes of
things of life, the aboliit”

It could mean the shorten’ "ee
the working week to ‘a
hours. ‘

*

But automation will

ess
something very differett “omat
we take the right acliony in?
could happen is summe pel

conversation that took plac® (ond
an official of Ford’s Clever
plant was showing: eRe
automatic lines to. Waller | ited -
er, president of. the cl.
Auto Workers in the U.
Waving his hand at @
‘mated line that had replace off
hundreds of ‘workers, the ©
demanded: ¢
“How are you going one!”
union dues from these uthe
“And how,” replied “ines
“are you going to gets
buy Fords?” is
The company’s threat -
—automation was to be
break the union and attac® |
ing conditions. ;
Employers are no ;
in shortening everybodys ‘
ing hours; they prefer 10 yo
half the workers and ™ ga
other half work over tint fatt®
ings of labor are to mea"
‘profits, not higher wages: z cast
But in the long sae 7g rep
og ‘sy ayes
get away from Re preadld

If the men are on the
the unsold goods pile :
then comes the slump: its pla
And what is to take og
Only socialism, which © eds
production to serve
the people and not to
vate profit, can use ©
to provide abundan ine
the technical level Ot ©~
to the required Poin’ iy
But that answer is 5
years ahead us me
be our. attitude OO ae
while capitalism continu i
How can we prevent
machinery from peing a
the Ford _ official 9 HOW ors
against the workers: woe
we make sure that the ings e
get a.full share of the stow oe
machines will bri ets fro
we prevent automa ;
leading to wholesale
Tt is the purpos¢ ©"
to raise these problems ;
cussion, not to pro 3
dried answers. The #2
come in the first place oy
cussions in the plan f nee
is certain: It will be :
most knotty probler :
unions have ever j

pooPl

ca