Another Industrial Revolution Predicted By American Labour

Press, Volume XCIII, Issue 27912, 8 March 1956, Page 9

Another Industrial Revolution Predicted By American Labour

(From a Reuter Correspondent)

WASHINGTON. United States trade union leaders have foreshadowed a 30-hour working week to maintain full employment inindustry as more and more factories turn to “automation” and atomic power.

The demand for a 30-hour week has not yet become a live issue in industrial bargaining. But labour leaders and others are forecasting a “new industrial revolution” with the advent of electronically-controlled machinery and abundant cheap power from atomic reactors. Mr George Meany, head of the newly-merged American Federation of Labour and the Congress of Industrial Organisations, has said that the 30-hour week will be necessary to provide enough jobs in the industry of the future. This would also, he said, permit more time for “recreation, education and the general pursuit of happiness.” Automation has been described as “the process that edits man out of manufacturing.” It is more than simple mechanisation. It is the means whereby a whole group of production processes can be linked automatically so that labour costs are reduced to the bare minimum. It is already being applied in big insurance offices, oil refineries and railway yards in the United States. But it is in manufacturing industry that its effects are being felt most by organised labour. The best-known example of automation in action is the Ford Motor Company plant at River Rouge, Detroit. There, a line of giant machines connected by automatic conveyors and hoists produces 5500 engine blocks a day, operated by only a handful of men. The rough iron casting is fed in at one end and emerges at the other a completely machined engine block, accurately precisioned in every detail. Tell-tale coloured lights on various instrument panels indicate any trouble brewing and warn the technicians when drills and cutting edges are wearing out. If they are not renewed in time, the machine concerned shuts off automatically. All this is in contrast to conventional production lines, where the unfinished engine block has to be laboriously swung into position for each successive process, requiring human labour at every stage. The capital cost of installing automation with its complicated electronic controls, is enormous. But for ihose industries which can afford it and profit by it, the future is likely to bring a wider and wider use of this ultra-modern technique. What its full effects will be, no-one can yet say for certain. There has been widespread speculation here, but little hard evidence upon which to base firm conclusions. Three results might, however, be expected:— (1) Automation would undoubtedly save labour in mass-production industry. This might, of course, be counterbalanced to a small extent by the need for extra labour to build the automation equipment itself. (2) It will take human drudgery out of the work done. Workers who now operate lathes and drills may find themselves becoming push-button technicians at instrument panels. (3) It will, properly applied, reduce costs and increase production. Mr Meany has warned labour that it must guard against the possibility that this new industrial age will break down the conditions of life and work which wage earners have acheived in the past. Although he insists that labour will not resist industrial progress. he maintains that unions must greatly expand their training and retraining programmes to teach their members the latest mechanical and electronic processes. “Labour must also face the harsh prospect that there may come an

extended re-tooling period in many industries which would result in widespread unemployment,” he said. To prevent needless suffering, unions in the mass-production industries had already taken steps to secure supplementary unemployment compensation or a guaranteed annual wage, said Mr Meany. “Such insurance against the human distress caused by unemployment will also help to cushion the economic shock of the transition and avert a tailspin. “The establishment of a 30-hour week undoubtedly will serve to multiply job opportunities and keep unemployment from getting out of hand,” he said. The strength of organised labour in the United States, both at the bargaining table and in its influence upon Government policies, largely depends on its cohesion and its membership. Even with 15,000.000 members, the alliance of the two great Labour organisations represents less than one-quarter of the nation’s labour force of some 67.700,000 men and women. Its leaders are planning a recruiting drive designed to double its membership within the next 10 to 15 years. Moreover, there are a host of internal organisational problems to solve. Both the organisations are loose federations of heterogeneous unions differing widely in outlook and interest. Local differences and personality clashes pervaded both, even before the December merger. The task of streamlining the new combined organisation and making its effects felt at state and local branch levels is a formidable one which may take years to fulfil.