Part 3

Great care has been taken to advocate that unemployed men be adapted and trained in new trades for the period of the war and that unskilled men be educated wherever possible before resorting to the employment of women.

POSSIBILITIES OF DEVELOPMENT

As an indication of the possibilities of this development, the experience of the State of New Jersey co-operating with this section may be cited. In order to overcome possible objection which labor might have to the introduction of emergency training a program was agreed on, after a series of conferences, which was heartily approved by all the employers and by the representatives of the employees. Some of the clauses of this agreement are as follows:

“All skilled labor available within the surrounding territory should be brought into the essential war industries before it is unduly diluted by the introduction of unskilled labor. When such dilution is necessary, and in the opinion of the committee that time has already arrived, the more skilled activities should be supplied by training those already at work and successful in handling the lesser skilled activities of the same general type. The lesser skilled activities should be supplied by training those already skilled in non-essential activities and not engaged at present in essential war industries, and who, because of such skill, are peculiarly capable of quickly learning the rudiments of the new activities.

“Exploitation of labor and reduction of wages through dilution for war purposes is to be avoided, and to this end persons brought into an essential industry, or promoted from one grade of work to another, are to be paid the prevailing rate of wages for the class of work for which they have been trained, after a training period of reasonable duration.

“Dilution of labor by the employment of women when necessary is recommended, provided women receive wages equal to men for the class of work performed by them, and provided the working conditions surrounding their activities are carefully controlled for their comfort and well-being.”

ELIMINATING HOUSING PROBLEM

One interesting result of training resident unemployed is the practical elimination of the housing problem in certain instances.

This is exemplified in the city of Detroit, where it is estimated that 50,000 additional mechanics will be needed before the end of the year. If those now engaged in the war plants could be advanced to more skilled positions, and their places be filled by present residents of Detroit engaged in non-essential or unskilled industries, or those not now at work, the need for housing of the 50,000 mechanics with their families could be, if not entirely, at least, in part, eliminated.

All who have tried these intensive methods of training are happily surprised at the shortness of time required to make skilled operatives for precision work in tool room and factory of men from non-essential trades and of the more intelligent women now entering industry for the war.

ACTIVITIES OF THE CHAIRMAN

To stimulate effort and arouse interest in training the idle and potential workers in each community, as well as to facilitate the up-grading of the old operatives, the sectional chairman has traveled from one manufacturing center to another for the past 12 months, addressing leading metal, machine-tool, and other manufacturers’ associations. He has also actually assisted in the establishment of vestibule Training Departments in the plants.

Both single shops and great industrial communities are acting upon the advice of this section, which will furnish experts for investigation and planning upon request.

PRATT INSTITUTE’S NATIONAL SERVICE COURSES IN MACHINE WORK

As a contribution to industrial training for the war emergency, Pratt Institute is conducting day and evening courses in Machine Work, which have been especially organized to serve the present need for increased productive efficiency in this country’s machine shops. These courses are designed to aid ambitious machine shop workers of limited development, including machine operators, bench hands and machinists’ helpers, who wish to extend and broaden their practical ability as a means to personal advancement in the trade, increased earning power and fuller service to production. Pratt Institute’s Machine Shop has been continuously employed to maximum capacity for this instruction since the entry of the United States into the war.

The Machine Work comprises six graded courses, each of which requires for its completion six weeks, if taken as a full-time day course, seven hours per day, or if taken as an evening course, twenty-four weeks, three evenings per week, two hours per evening. Day students register and pay tuition for six weeks, and evening students for twelve weeks. New classes are started at frequent intervals. A student may start in any course for which he is qualified, and may enroll for additional courses, either consecutively, or at some later time, if he finds it desirable to withdraw temporarily. Students are permitted also to transfer at any time from the day to the evening course or vice versa, with full credit for work already performed.

The instruction is adapted to the individual. Men capable of following directions without excessive damage to material or equipment are put on productive work. Men who have not reached this degree of efficiency are commonly assigned exercises. About 75 per cent. of the work is productive. Production is introduced as a means to greater efficiency in training.

Courses in Wooden Boat and Shipbuilding, Marine Engineering, Gasoline Engine Maintenance and Operation, Machine Drawing and Design, Ship Drafting, Chemical Laboratory Practice, in addition to an extensive list of day and evening trade and technical courses, all of which are of special service in the war emergency, are being conducted.

(Signed) SAMUEL S. EDMANDS.

BOARDMAN TRADE SCHOOL

The Boardman Apprentice Shop, under which name New Haven, Conn., operates a Trade School, is doing its share toward meeting the shortage of skilled and semi-skilled help and plans are being made to further this work.

The “Shop” teaches many trades under actual trade conditions, but as the most pressing need is for machine workers this trade only will be considered in this article even to the exclusion of the drafting department, second in importance, and results to the machine department.

Primarily this Trade School is operated to teach boys, but the evening continuation classes have grown in importance year by year until they have reached the present high standard of efficiency.

The machine department trains fifty boys in the day course and under normal conditions the boy graduates after 4,800 hours of study, seventy-five per cent. being trade practice and twenty-five per cent. academic study. At present many boys leave before the completion of their course to enter local munition factories. These boys are in great demand and even after a few months of training are found extremely useful in those factories.

The boys who complete their studies and receive their diplomas are largely sought for tool room work.

Thus the school is supplying more trained hands than the number of boys and length of course would indicate and that is but part of the story. These boys work eight hours a day, forty-four hours a week, fifty weeks a year, and produce real machinery practically all of which goes into the munition plants.

One lot of forty-five Horizontal Tappers was built and boxed and ready for shipment to Glasgow for use on British munitions long before cargo space was available.

The boys build two sizes of screw slotting machines, two sizes of horizontal tapping machines, lathes, slide rests, drill press vises and hundreds of small cutters.