tubing the S
‘ ie ateg
4 ants

- &,

oe

ing sont! Production in ¢

he United States. is far above
fewer workers than it was last year.

i]

1954 levels, but the industry. today is employ-

ation:

curse or
_. blessing?

__A U.S. labor view by George Morris

i

SHAR
A cd debate, is raging over
and «ation and its economic
‘ecial consequences.

The
ing eaebor Movement is becom-
Conc vermed. as some of those

Se
the foeences are already felt in

Of elimination of skills

Tm
and fp
Waves of unemploy-

Ment,

The .
Tich g, YPloyers, especialy those

age gp ough to take full advant-
Paniag na omation, and the com-
aUtomatiny Profitably engaged in
‘tain ng Plants, are stoutly de-

SU
New atCes that we are in for a
4 of prosperity,

The seers
the oy ou of lost jobs caused
COnfey . 9 call a special national

& new technology with’

‘Shington nae 2 es daa at
Lab ’ i
Enea se Program, that confer-
to take he is only beginning
Vefinite Shape. But the CIO: was
Tespegy. 82d. unequivocal in one
Yancama, 2¢S ‘technological . ad-
Tatig 1s welcomed and auto-
Pop) sn be a-blessing to the

8) .
“Urge but so far it has been a

} ce

A t " * *
eed . ‘
&d my tHeendous amount of print-
jttibut im recent months has
sion o,f much of the con-
Nis ge an the question. Much of
“nsational brand pic-
nue -button” factories
of Small groups of at-
Centner eettic brain” and
control boards.

ais gi
Yon as at’ People from auto-
J Problem, ™mediate and ser-

n

. Other hand, there.is the
“ctric hay ified in a General
e fee] eee that would have
no] MUatig Omation is merely a
bycsical ..« Of traditional tech-
iitton oe Vance, and the push«
re © ot. is not known ‘out-
~*ets» S°Mic books and scare

is clearly de-
the growing
Speedup and
Y unions for a
benefits of auto-
orm of guaranteed
or "wages; a shorter
igher wages.

re balanced and
Automation is

be
emntion inp ee
t

Wop, Me

unquestionably a continuation of

the technological trend we have

‘seen since the advent of steam
power. » But just as there have
been a number of “leaps” in the
evolutionary course of this tech-
nological program in the past, a
number of new elements enter
the picture now for another such
jump ahead.

It is these new developments
that come under the heading of
automation.

In addition, these new develop-
ments have been forced forward
by the rapid advance of the tradi-
tional form of mechanization,
modernization and further ex-
pansion of the conveyor belt-idea.
In fact, it can probably be shown
that more human hands - have

“heen displaced in recent years
by the latter forms than by the
methods that come ‘under the
heading automation.

*

Walter S. Buckingham, associ-
ate professor of industrial man-
agement at Georgia Institute of
Technology, brought the more
“balanced view into the CIO con-
ference. 1
mation in its full form is pretty
much limited to fields in which
production can be a “continuous
flow process,” as in oil refining,
flour mills and chemical produc-
tion. ;

In some industries it is pos-
sible to link a series of existing
automated unit operations into a
single endless process controlled
through automation instruments.

In a second category of indus-
tries, full or nearly full automa-
tion is not possible or wise econ-
emically (profit-wise, that is).

Finally there is the category
where. operations or services are
so clearly personal or individual
that automation is not even con-
ceivable. | '

What is actually new in tech-
-nological development that gave
us the, term “automation?” The
CIO analysis accepts essentially
the position given by Professors
George B. Baldwin and George P.
Schultz, of the Massachusetts In-
stitute of Technology.

One variety of automation, say
Baldwin and Shultz, is what is

He stressed that auto- ~

commonly called “Detroit  auto-
mation.” .-

It is a continuation of the as-

sembly line. But instead of the
long chain serviced by thousands
of humans each of whom con-
tributes in some small way to the
end product, the “integration” or
link-up of automatic operations
is arranged under the guidance
of a control panel of numerous
electronic instruments. “No hu-
man hands touch the product as

Concluded on next Page

introduced in the mines.

time and unemployment.

Both in this country (top) and in the
In the Soviet Union
hours. In Canada too, coal miners have won higher wages,

@ A British labor view

NEW industrial. revolution
-£ has been beginning almost
imperceptibly in a number of
British factories during the past
“ew years.

A revolution which, applied
Cm a large scale throughout in-
dustry, could double wage pack-
ets or cut by half the working
week of every worker in. the
country without a reduction in
pay—or cut by half the number
employed.

This revolution consists in the
use of highly automatic processes
in which many machines perform-
ing different jobs are linked
together, eliminating repetitive

human labor, making it possible ,

for one or tWo’experts to super-
vise machinefy which does the
work previously performed by a

‘whole department or factory.
This development—in the US. .

the word “automation” has been
coined to describe it—was dis-

‘cussed at the conference of the

British Amalgamated Engineer-
ing Union recently.

The delegates there called for
a union inquiry into the use of
such techniques in the engineer-
ing industry, and an examination
of how they. would affect the
workers’ wages, conditions and
prospects of employment.

+ In one factory the work of
117 machinists was now done by
41. :

+ In another, radio sets were
now being assembled at the rate
of 1,000 a day by two men, where
formerly 200 were employed.

The reason the engineers call-
ed for an inquiry will, of course,
be obvious to every intelligent
worker. So long as we still have
capitalist “free enterprise’ in
Britain, the new automatic meth-
ods are a very mixed blessing in-
deed.

Instead of leading to shorter
hours, and high pay, they can
just as easily cut the number of
workers in thé plants by half and
throw us into a worse slump
than the thirties. A

Automation is being applied
particularly in the auto industry,

Sovi et Union (bottom

i ) coal digging machinery has been
it has meant higher wages, better conditions and shorter
but mechanization has also brought

as. for instance, the’ Austin plant
at Birmingham and General Mo-
tors’ Vauxhall piant at Luton.

Austins now use well over a
hundred ‘transfer machines” —
that is, machines which are the
equivalent of whole liges of auto-
matic drillers, millers and the
like. The metal article being
made is transported automatieal-
iy from one machine to the next,
so that only loading and unload-
ing is done by hand.

One of these automatic produc-
tion lines, which makes cylinder-
blocks, carries out 13 different
processes and requires only two
workers—for loading the metal
and-unloading the finished pro-
duct..

This is certainly a great saving
for the-employers, both in labor
costs, which are cut to less than
one-fifth of standard machines,
and capital costs and overhead,
which are cut by more than half.

Of course, whether the work-
ers welcome the change depends
on what happens to the nine or
ten men who are no longer’ need-
ed on the job, and on who pock-
ets the difference between the
old and new cost of production.

*

In the Soviet Union, though
automation ,is perhaps not so
widespread yet as in the U-S., the
best’ examples seem to be even
more advanced. F

A plant near Moscow supplies

“pistons for the entire Soviet light

car industry, and yet needs the
attention of only nine workers
per shift—a general controller,
five maintenance men, two ma-
chine-minders on the line, and
one laborer. -

The laborer feeds alumninm
ingots on to a conveyor, and that
is the last contact the pistons-to-
be have with humanity!

The conveyor tips the ingots‘
into an electric furnace. Weighed
batches. of the metal run into
moulds which, after cooling, eject
the castings.

After an automatic hardness
test the castings pass through a

‘ Concluded on next page

short

PACIFIC TRIBUNE — JUNE 24, 1955 — PAGE 9