Unemployment in the United States

Bibliographic data

Monograph

Identifikator:: 1828236179

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-226169

Document type:: Monograph

Title:: Unemployment in the United States

Place of publication:: Washington

Publisher:: United States, Government Printing Office

Year of publication:: 1930

Scope:: II, 193 Seiten

Digitisation:: 2022

Collection:: Economics Books

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Chapter

Document type:: Monograph

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: Statement of Mr. William Green, president of American Federation of Labor

Collection:: Economics Books

= nt. p 16 [ re nn mn i yd 1 aQ A 0 i } a 3 “y UNEMPLOYMENT IN THE UNITED STATES 47 one man a whole day to make forty electric light bulbs. The next year came a machine that made 73,000 bulbs in 24 hours. Each of these machines threw 992 men out of work. In the boot and shoe industry 100 machines take the place of 25,000 men. : . Mr. Montague. Would you correct that situation by prohibiting mvention? Mr. Grex. How is that? Mr. MonTacue. You would not suppress invention that brought. about the simplification of making bulbs? Mr. Green. Certainly not; no. Mr. MONTAGUE. Some gentleman asked a while ago if we should not stop that. Mr. Green. Oh, no. Labor is not opposed to the introduction of mechanical devices; but what we ask is that we shall share in the benefits that come from the introduction of mechanical devices and that the Government and society shall help the men who pay the greatest price because of the introduction of these mechanical devices. Mr. Montague. I agree with you about that, but one of the gen- tleman of the committee suggested carefully considering the question of suppressing invention. Mr. GrReeN. I did not hear that. Mr. CeLLer. Would it not be a partial remedy to time the intro- duction of these labor-saving devices to await a period when these men Je are to be displaced can find other jobs and other employ~ ment? Mr. Green. Well we may reach that problem, but labor has not asked that that be dealt with at this time. We can not compass the whole issue by developing these mechanical difficulties. Mr. Cerrer. Has not that been done by some large employers of labor in one or two industries? Mr. Green. Well, one or two have experimented in that direction, but they are, as a rule, altruistic employers. The general run of em- ployers have not done so. In the boot and shoe industry 100 machines take the place of 25,000 men. In the manufacture of razor blades, one man can now turn out 32,000 blades in the same time needed for 500 in 1913. In automobile factories similar changes have taken place. In a middle western State to-day, a huge machine turns out completed auto- mobile frames almost untouched by human hand. About 200 men are needed to supervise this vast machine, and they turn out between 7,000 and 9,000 frames a day. Compare this with a well known automobile plant in Central Europe where the same number of men are making automobile frames by older methods. They turn out 35 frames a day. In steel blast furnaces 7 men now do the work of 60 in casting pig iron, and even in the last two years, since 1927, the improvements in technical processes have reduced the necessary work force in the Bessemer process by 24 per cent. In machine shops, one man with a “gang” of semiautomatic machines replaces 25 skilled mechanics, Thirty workers with 10 machines can now do the work of 240 in the Sun Tube Corporation machine shop. A new machine installed by the de Forrest Radio Co., will turn out 2,000 subes an hour with 3 operatives as against 150 tubes from the old machine with 40 operators. 118%08—20—u¢FRr 11-nu-dqd

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