Chapter 16
SUMMARY OF REPORT ON THE METAL TRADES
Approximately one-half of the total number of persons in Cleveland engaged in manufacturing are found in the metal industries. When the last federal census was taken nearly one-seventh of the entire male population was employed in establishments engaged in the manufacture of crude or finished metal products. Pittsburgh only, among the 10 largest cities in the country, has a higher proportion of its industrial population working in such establishments. In relation to its total population, Cleveland has twice as many people working in these industries as Chicago, three times as many as Philadelphia, and four times as many as New York. It is estimated that at the present time the number of wage earners in the city engaged in this kind of work is between 70,000 and 80,000.
The report deals with the three leading industries of the city,--foundry and machine shop products, automobile manufacturing, and steel works and rolling mills. The study of this last group also includes several related industries, such as blast furnaces, wire mills, nail mills, and bolt, nut, and rivet factories. About three-fourths of the total number of wage earners in the city engaged in the manufacture of metal products are found in these three industries.
The field investigations consisted of personal visits to the manufacturing establishments for the purpose of securing first hand data as to industrial conditions, and conferences with employers, superintendents, foremen, and workmen as to the need and possibilities of training for metal working occupations. In all, 60 establishments, employing approximately 35,000 men, were visited. The conclusions as to vocational training were based on an analysis of educational needs in the various metal industries, together with an extended study of the social and economic factors which condition the training of all workers. Particular attention was given to the administrative problems involved in such training in public schools.
FOUNDRY AND MACHINE SHOP PRODUCTS
According to the United States Census, foundries and factories making machine shop products gave employment in 1909 to nearly 18,000 Cleveland wage-earners. This industrial group ranks first in the city, employing more than twice as many workers as the next largest industry,--automobile manufacturing,--and approximately two-fifths of the total working force in all metal industries. Its growth during the previous five years, from the standpoint of number of workers employed, showed an increase of about 33 per cent, and it is estimated that the total number of wage-earners in 1914 was approximately 25,000. At the present time, due to the impetus given to this branch of manufacturing by the European war, the working force is undoubtedly in excess of this figure.
The report gives extended consideration to the machinist's trade, which constitutes by far the largest body of skilled workers in the city. This trade has been affected more than any other by the progress of invention and the modern tendency towards specialization. In many establishments the all-round machinist, competent to do independent work and operate the wide variety of machine tools now used in the trade, had practically disappeared. In his place are found "specialist" machine hands who have learned the operation of a single machine tool, but have no general knowledge of the trade, and who if called on to perform work requiring the use of a machine tool different from the one on which they are employed are unable to do so. There are hundreds of drill press hands who cannot operate a milling machine, lathe hands who know nothing of planer work, and so on. The subdivision of these occupations follows closely the advance in invention, so that employers advertising for help frequently specify not only the machine tool to be used but add the name of the firm which manufactures that particular type of machine, with the result that there are about as many kinds of machinists as there are manufacturers of machine tools. Table 18 shows the estimated number of men employed, with their distribution in the various branches of the trade.
TABLE 18.--PROPORTIONS AND ESTIMATED NUMBERS EMPLOYED IN MACHINE TOOL OCCUPATIONS, 1915
+------------+-------------+ | | Estimated | Workers | Per cent | number | --------------------------------+------------+-------------+ Lathe hands | 18.8 | 3,384 | Drill press operators | 17.9 | 3,222 | Bench hands | 13.4 | 2,412 | Machinists | 12.7 | 2,286 | Screw machine operators | 9.4 | 1,692 | Milling machine operators | 8.6 | 1,548 | Tool makers | 8.3 | 1,494 | Grinding machine operators | 6.2 | 1,116 | Planer hands | 2.2 | 396 | Turret lathe operators | 1.8 | 324 | Gear cutter operators | .7 | 126 | --------------------------------+------------+-------------+ Total | 100.0 | 18,000 | --------------------------------+------------+-------------+
Specialization has operated to lower standards of skill and keep down wages. The average wage of the "all-round" machinist is very nearly the lowest found among the skilled trades. The union scale is but 14 cents an hour above that paid unskilled labor, while the average earnings of machine operators range from four to 12 cents above laborers' wages. Only among the highly skilled tool makers do the wages approach those received by skilled labor in most other industries. Table 19 shows the average, highest, and lowest rates per hour for all branches of the machine trades in the establishments from which data were collected during the survey, with the per cent employed on piece work and day work.
TABLE 19.--AVERAGE, HIGHEST, AND LOWEST EARNINGS, IN CENTS PER HOUR, AND PER CENT EMPLOYED ON PIECE WORK AND DAY WORK, 1915
+-------+-------+-------+--------+--------+ | | | |Per cent|Per cent| | | | |on piece| on day | Workers |Lowest |Average|Highest| work | work | ---------------------------+-------+-------+-------+--------+--------+ Tool makers | 25.0 | 39.0 | 50.0 | .. | 100 | Machinists | 25.0 | 33.2 | 50.0 | .. | 100 | Planer hands | 20.0 | 32.2 | 42.0 | .. | 100 | Grinding machine operators | 20.0 | 32.0 | 50.0 | 70 | 30 | Bench hands | 17.5 | 29.6 | 45.0 | 48 | 52 | Screw machine operators | 17.5 | 29.5 | 63.8 | 79 | 21 | Lathe hands | 19.0 | 29.1 | 40.0 | 40 | 60 | Turret lathe operators | 25.0 | 29.0 | 47.5 | 80 | 20 | Gear cutter operators | 20.0 | 26.7 | 40.0 | 96 | 4 | Milling machine operators | 15.0 | 25.9 | 40.0 | 53 | 47 | Drill press operators | 15.0 | 23.5 | 35.0 | 35 | 65 | Machinists' helpers | 20.0 | 22.2 | 25.0 | .. | 100 | ---------------------------+-------+-------+-------+--------+--------+
On the basis of weekly or yearly earnings, the trade makes a better showing. Work is steady throughout the year, and the time lost through unemployment on account of seasonal changes is slight. Also, as the usual working day is from nine to 10 hours, that is, from one to two hours longer than in the higher paid building trades, the difference in daily wages is really less marked than a comparison of hourly rates would seem to indicate.
Little attempt has been made to adapt the apprentice system to modern conditions. The term of service and rates of pay have changed but slightly over a long period of years. As a result only a small proportion of the boys who begin as apprentices finish the apprenticeship term of three or four years. Employers attribute this to the relatively high wages paid for machine operating, and the slight advantage, from a wage standpoint, of the "all-round" man over the machine operator. After a year or two the apprentice finds that he can double his pay by taking a job as operator, and the inducement for learning the trade thoroughly is too small to hold him. The report gives a comparison of the earnings of an apprentice and a machine operator, both starting at the same age, the first becoming a journeyman machinist at the end of three years and the second specializing on a particular machine. Assuming that both boys go to work at the age of 16 their total earnings up to the age of 25 years will be approximately equal. The lack of thoroughly trained workmen is beginning to be felt, but the efforts made by industrial establishments to meet it have small prospects of success unless the economic factors of the problem are given greater consideration.
Inasmuch as no regular apprenticeship period is served for machine operating, a special effort was made to secure data relating to the time usually required for the worker to learn the operation of each tool well enough to earn average wages. In this matter the individual opinions of foremen and superintendents differed widely, but when the reports from all the establishments visited were compared, a sufficient degree of uniformity was found to serve as a basis for estimating the amount of experience workers of average intelligence would need, under normal shop conditions, in order to become fairly proficient.
There was practical unanimity in fixing the period at four years for tool makers and three to four years for machinists. Higher estimates were received from the superintendents of plants doing a jobbing business or manufacturing high grade machine tools than from the specialized shops making a single product. The superintendents of automobile manufacturing plants, where the standard of quality in production is necessarily high, gave the lowest estimates of all. Table 20 shows the estimated time required to learn the various types of machine work.
TABLE 20.--ESTIMATED TIME REQUIRED TO LEARN MACHINE TOOL WORK
+----------------------+ Workers | Time required | ------------------------------------+----------------------+ Grinding machine operators | 12 to 15 months | Lathe hands | 6 to 9 months | Planer hands | 6 months | Gear cutter operators | 6 months | Turret lathe operators | 4 to 6 months | Screw machine operators | 3 to 6 months | Bench hands | 3 to 6 months | Milling machine operators | 2 to 4 months | Drilling machine operators | 2 weeks to 4 months | ------------------------------------+----------------------+
The weakness of specialization, with its constant tendency towards the substitution of semi-skilled operatives for trained workmen, lies in its failure to provide a body of workers from whom to recruit the large directive force needed in any scheme of production based on semi-skilled labor. This condition is regarded by many employers with grave concern, and in a few plants apprentice schools designed primarily to train future foremen have been established.
Practically all the foremen in the shops visited had received an all-round training as machinists, and there are few opportunities for promotion open to men who have not a general knowledge of the trade. On the other hand, such general knowledge is only one of the requisites for advancement. Others are initiative, resourcefulness, tact, self-control, ability to get along with men, and a disposition to subordinate personal interests to the interests of the business. To these should be added the quality of patience, for there must be vacancies before there can be promotions, and vacancies among the better positions are not frequent. Ten of the establishments visited, employing a total working force of over 5,000 men, reported but eight vacancies among foremen's positions over a period of one year. These same establishments had in their employ a total of 618 all-round machinists and tool makers. Assuming that only the machinists and tool makers were eligible for promotion, the mathematical chance per man of becoming a foreman during the year was about one in 77.
Other occupations studied in detail were pattern making, molding, core making, blacksmithing, and boiler making. Pattern making offers the most interesting work and the highest wages among the metal trades, but the total number of American born pattern makers in the city does not exceed seven or eight hundred, so the field of employment is relatively limited. Molding and core making, in which between 4,000 and 5,000 men are engaged, have practically become foreign trades. Less than 20 per cent of the molders in the city were born in this country. These trades offer few opportunities for employment to boys of native birth. Somewhat similar conditions exist in the blacksmithing trade. Changed methods of production have largely done away with the old-time blacksmith, who survives only in horse-shoeing and repair shops. The proportion of native blacksmiths is steadily declining, and it is unlikely that any considerable number of boys from the public schools will enter the trade. The boiler making trade employs relatively few men, the total number of native born boiler makers at the time of the last census being less than 600. The trade seems to be at a standstill. The increase during the previous decade was less than five per cent against a total population increase of 46 per cent. The average earnings per hour for these trades in the establishments visited by members of the Survey Staff are shown in Table 21.
TABLE 21.--AVERAGE EARNINGS PER HOUR IN PATTERN MAKING, MOLDING, CORE MAKING, BLACKSMITHING, AND BOILER MAKING
Average earnings Workers Per Hour
Pattern makers .44 Skilled molders .39 Semi-skilled molders .27 Skilled core makers .39 Semi-skilled core makers .27 Blacksmiths .33 Boiler makers .32
The findings and recommendations as to training emphasize the fact that the vast majority of boys who become workers in the metal trades leave school by the time they are 15 with at most a common school education, so that any vocational training before they go to work must be given between the ages of 12 and 15 and before the end of the eighth grade. The report points out the impossibility of effective vocational instruction in elementary schools on account of the prohibitive cost per pupil for both equipment and teaching, and endorses the recently adopted junior high school plan. This form of organization has the great advantage of concentrating in large groups the boys who are old enough to make a beginning in prevocational training, and through the departmental system of teaching offers facilities for differentiation of courses to meet their varying needs.
Whatever their cultural value, the present manual training courses in woodwork have little relation to the requirements of any metal working trade, except pattern making, in which some of the same tools are used. No manual training work in metal is offered in the elementary and junior high schools.
The course recommended for the junior high school lays especial emphasis on applied mathematics, mechanical drawings, practice in assembling and taking apart machines, and the utilization of the shop as a laboratory for teaching industrial science. The report maintains that the object of such a course should be the development of industrial intelligence through the application of mathematical and mechanical principles to the solution of concrete problems, rather than the teaching of specific operations and skill in the use of tools. In mechanical drawing the ability to understand and interpret drawings should be given more importance than the ability to make drawings. Few workmen are ever called on to draw, while the ability to read plans and sketches is always in demand. It is also recommended that boys who do not expect to take a full high school course or who intend to leave at the end of the compulsory period should devote at least a period each week to the study of economic and working conditions in industrial and commercial occupations.
With respect to the technical high schools the report holds that these schools are primarily training schools for the higher positions of industry. They undoubtedly offer the best instruction obtainable in the city for the ambitious boy who wishes to prepare himself for supervisory and managerial positions in industry or for a college engineering course.
The establishment of a separate two-year vocational school, equipped for giving instruction in all the larger industrial trades, is recommended. The number of boys in the public schools between the ages of 14 and 16 who are likely to enter the metal trades is between 700 and 800, of whom from 500 to 600 will become machinists or machine tool operators. An enrollment of much less than this number is sufficient to justify the installation of good shop equipment and the employment of a corps of teachers who have had the special training necessary for this kind of work. It should be possible to form a class in pattern making and foundry work of from 80 to 100 boys, and one of at least 30 in blacksmithing. Boiler making could be taught in connection with sheet metal work.
Various changes are recommended in the present evening school classes for machinists, molders, and pattern makers now given by the technical high schools. It is claimed that the courses as now organized are not elastic enough to meet the varying needs of the journeymen, helpers, machine operators, and apprentices employed in these trades. The great need is for short unit courses in which the instruction is limited to a particular machine or a special branch of the trade. The long course tends to discourage the student, especially when it embraces an amount of theory out of all proportion to his working needs.
AUTOMOBILE MANUFACTURING
Due to the large number and specialized character of the occupations in this industry, they are taken up in a more general way than the "foundries and machine shop" group. The productive departments of the automobile factories utilize in the main the same equipment as other machinery manufacturing plants, but specialization has been carried to a degree found in few other metal industries. The "all-round" workman is a rara avis. The machine shops are manned by machine "specialists" most of whom know how to operate a single machine tool or perform a single operation made up of relatively simple elements. From one-half to two-thirds of the working force is recruited from immigrant labor which is "broken in" under skilful foremen within a period varying from a few days to a few weeks. In the simpler assembling operations the jobs are so subdivided that any man who is not actually feebleminded can learn the work in a few days. Production is on a large scale, permitting the maintenance of high-grade engineering and experimental departments, where all of the work is planned to the last detail. As a result the automobile manufacturers are turning out one of the most complicated and most efficient machines known to modern industry with a working force composed chiefly of semi-skilled labor.
For the machine shop workers the training suggested is similar to that recommended for the same class of workmen in other machine shops. The necessity of short unit courses adapted for teaching parts of the trade rather than the whole trade is obvious, as most automobile workers are employed on specialized operations. Short unit evening courses for motor and transmission assemblers, and testers and inspectors, are recommended.
STEEL WORKS, ROLLING MILLS, AND RELATED INDUSTRIES
A somewhat similar treatment is followed with respect to the iron and steel group of industries--blast furnaces, steel mills, rolling mills, wire mills, nail mills, and bolt, nut, and rivet factories. These industries are characterized by a high proportion of common and semi-skilled labor in the working force. Between 75 and 90 per cent of the workers are of foreign birth. In the operating department of one mill only two Americans were found among a total of 600 employees. As a rule the native born workers are mechanics employed in the power and maintenance departments.
With scarcely an exception the occupations are of a nature that require the worker to learn through actual experience in the mills. Theory and practice must be learned at the same time. Even the supervisory and executive positions in which a technical education is of considerable value require a long and arduous apprenticeship on the job before the worker can compete with men who have started with the scantiest educational equipment, but have picked up a knowledge of the processes by experience and observation. Below these positions the work rapidly grades off to various kinds of machine operating in which not even the ability to read or understand English is required.
No plan of vocational training is presented, because at present the mills recruit almost exclusively from foreign labor, and only a very small number of boys from the public schools are likely to seek employment in them. The technical content of the work which might conceivably be given in evening classes, except in the case of the few directive and supervisory positions, is so small that continuation instruction offers but meager hopes of success. Under present conditions the long working day and the necessity of changing from the day to the night shift, or vice-versa every two weeks, constitutes an insuperable obstacle to the organization of night classes.
The principal need of the rank and file is a speaking and reading knowledge of the English language, so that the workers can be taught to avoid and prevent accidents, and give themselves the necessary care when they occur. Instruction in English with possibly courses in accident prevention and personal hygiene represent about the only training possible that can be said to have any real vocational significance.