BUT PRICES ARE HIGHER Automation rules *57 auto production By WILLIAM ALLAN DETROIT There will be nothing slow about 1957 new cars if the corporations have their way. “Tex” Colbert, president of Chrysler Corporation, told a recent meet- ing of Chrysler United Auto Workers leaders that he wants 40 percent more prov duction on output than was given in 1956, with no more help. Henry Ford II is bragging that Ford will “turn out’’ more cars than in 1956 models. Harold Churchill, new president of Studebaker- Packard, announces that pro- duction methods to get more profits on the 1957 Packard will be “lean and hard.” Another set of fast moves being publicly announced is that the profit-fat corporations are ready to boost new car prices up as high as $200 a ear. This price increase to be passed on to dealers who in turn can either pass it on to the customers or absorb. Meanwhile latest reports on the first six months profits after taxes of the Big Three show General Motors: $503,- 500,000; Ford, $131,700,000 and Chrysler, $18,700,000. GM is expected to clean up another billion dollars in profits this year and Ford over a quarter of a billion. That “Tex” Colbert of Chry- sler wasn’t fooling is seen in reports from the Dodge Main Foundry in Hamtramck, Mich. The foundries are al- ways first to start work on the new models. At Dodge the company demanded a 30 per- cent increase in production right away and the union said flatly no. A spokesman for Dodge Local 3 replied that to give this corporation one inch means it will never relax its demands for more production. The Big Three and the “in- dependents,” American Motors and Studebaker-Packard, are all banking heavily on new plants and automation and speedup to reduce “costs” in order to enable them to com- pete for the shrinking car market. There was a time when over 70 percent of the cars in the U.S. were made in Mich- igan. Today, more than 4,000,- 000 of the expected 6,000,000 will be produced outside Michigan. Ford has put up 39 new plants in the last ten years. At the giant Rouge plant, 70,000 used to work there in 1946. Now some 43,000 worked on the ’56 model and at least 1,000 will be pared off the payroll on the ’57. A new stamping plant in Chicago will do stamping there but the 1,000 Rouge workers won’t have Subserite uow aud get our special offer FALSE WITNESS by HARVEY MATUSOW @ 50¢ and 6-month sub (Total $2.75) : @ 25¢ and 1-year sub (Total $4.25) FILL IN AND SEND NO To: TRIBUNE PUBLISHING CO. LTD. Room 6 — 426 Main Street, Vancouver 4, B.C. Please send FALSE WITNESS EE ER BR Be 8 ay Te (1 (New sub) @ “In all of the literature dealing with the dark annals of espionage, political imtrigue and anti- democratic conspiracy, I know of no more significant and remark- able work than this book .. .” ALBERT E. KAHN el [] (Money order) (] (Renewal) O (Cheque) * to in crease profits in the coming year. Chrysler’s new plant at New Hudson, Michigan, is expected to ™ town of Hamtramck, where the old Dodge plant emP workers. their jobs here or there. Chrysler is getting ready to build a huge new assembly plant in New Hudson, *Mich- igan, to replace the old Dodge Main plant in Hamtramck. Some 23,000 work at Dodge Main, now. Hamtramek may soon be- come a ghost town. Dearborn within the next few years will also be in the same crisis, The U.S. govern- ment gives the corporations every aid in building these runaway plants in “the corn- fields,’ as UAW president Walter Reuther terms them. They pay for them through tax deductions. Included in these new plants are all the latest automation methods. The Ford plant in Cleveland is an example. A group of button-pushers do the work formerly done by thousands. A recent UAW foundry con- ference here was told by UAW vice-president Pat Greathouse that foundries will lose many hundreds of jobs as automa- tion moves in. The 1957 models will have one important aspect that the hucksters aren’t going to talk about in the ads — a growing number of unemployed. Last -season _during _the height of production here un- employed rolls still showed 80,000 workers idle. This sea- son there will be more, with 7,500 from Packard left stranded as the model goes to South Bend. Some 3,000 at Motor Products have no more jobs and hundreds will be sliced off by automation in- stallations. > The overall chief concern of the UAW from top to local union officers is how to save jobs in peril from all these moves of the corporations. Jack, Duey, UAW district committeeman at Ford’s has this to say: “Yes we are all for progress. “Tex” Colbert, president of Chrysler Corporalill ‘ ' told these workers that he expects 40 percent mo duction from them in 1956-57. Like Ford and Gener SEPTEMBER 28, 1956 — PACIFIC TRIBU Joys The union and “its a are prepared to acon mation and not 0 gress. “We are, howeve® heart and are rebelllt ' the automatic cuts” j home pay, our J eliminated and 1, 3 sold out, shipped 04% away under darknes the weekend to othet iif the country because er inducements.” e€ ae a Memorandum of be ing of Workers Rights. Ford Local No. 600 p on the Internati leaders to open UP of! now for a 30-hour to dal: 40 hours pay ane. a tht programs for fight takeaway. ; From the way it here a real firing | ing up on these i) 7 will accompany t S| A-weapons ™ held disastt™) “T don’t know ddl about politics, but ap ‘e 4 work to prevent ce war,” Dr. Hideck gf fy 4 Nobel prize-wintl”t ok scientist, said th \ visit to Vancouve if “TE the competil® oily ing atomic weaP® gst yi it will end 10, phy Yukawa, who_} 7 Ma member of 4% Energy Commi “In order t0 safe from the nae weapons WE og, war,” he contin¥ the ay breaks out 4 ‘ reat danger 1 fhe other using al! NE ~ gio} af Ht ons.