13,000 MAIMED AT WORK

Evening Star, Issue 19614, 21 July 1927, Page 12

13,000 MAIMED AT WORK

MILLIONAIRE'S WONDER FACTORY JOBS FOR THEM ALL. Every morning the Ford Motor I’hnit at Michigan is in operation, 13,000 blind, maimed, and diseased men and women walk into work. These physically handicapped workpeople represent one-third of the total employees at this plant, and yet it retains its record as one of tho most efficient and profit-making concerns in tho world, and a concern that has made Mr Ford a multi-millionaire. Among these 13,000 cripples are 5,000 suffering from hernia, 2,000 with defective eyesight (some of whom are totally blind), while the remainder suffer from tuberculosis, loss of limbs, paralysis, and shell shock IN THE OPEN A lll, Despite their infirmities, however, they are the happiest workers in the world, lor tho majority of them realise that very few employers have much use for a man or woman afflicted with blindness or with amputated limbs. Nevertheless, the Ford .Motor Plant has work for them all to do, and, without the firm being at all philanthropic, they earn every farthing they receive. How the plant absorbs all these people is explained below. The salvage yards arc kept for the use of the tubercular employees. The recovery of a largo amount of marketable material represents an enormous saving to the firm, and as the work is of an open-air character, both parties benefit. Moreover, tho work is not heavy and does not impose too great a strain on the people engaged. JOB FOR THE BLIND, Those without legs or arms are engaged on machines which, even with this terrible infirmity, they can operate. The blimt members of the firm have developed such a close sense of touch that they are able to work almost ns fast as those fortunate in possessing their sight, and, further, have not so much to distract them from their task, as would be the case if they could sec. Their occupation is that of combining brass rings with asbestos rings. The brass ring is first of all put on the spindle of a small machine. Then follows the asbestos ring, and the two are damped together by means of a small lever which has to be pulled. ■ .C 6 A WEEK “ I often thought when I lost the fingers of my right hand that I would never be able to work again,” said a middle-aged man, “ hut I manage to earn six pounds a week despite my accident.” The _ insurance companies have raised no objections to including these disabled .people in the group insurance policies effected by the Ford Company, and have charged tho same rates as that for those physically fit. ,