The Iron Age 1920-12-09: Vol 106 Iss 24

Solves Problem of Feeding Army of Workers Large Westinghouse Cafeteria at East Pittsburgh Will Serve Nine Thousand People an Hour—Con- veyor Belts and Other Labor-Saving Equipment IKE the army in the field, the army of the factory etter food for its en pioyees would have an effect on a; must be well fed to produce maximum results. the physical condition and the morale of the workers When a cdncern employs close to 50,000 people, 1 would insure ample returns on the investment as is true of the Westinghouse Electric & Mfg. Co., ed East Pittsburgh, Pa., the question of providing whol ; for practical reasons, then, that the Westing some food assumes proportions which command atte ise mpany undertook the construction and equip tion. Offhand one might regard it a stupendous task, ment of what is probably the largest industrial cafeteria hardly justified by business considerations, to provide n the world. In design of the building and the selec lunch room facilities for any considerable part of so tion of equipment as much care was exercised as is large a body of employees. The Westinghouse com- employed when preparing plans for a new factory unit. pany, on the other hand, believed that the provision of With so many people to serve it was essential that The Dining Room on the Se ond Floor of the Building H a Seating Capacity of 1500 The tables have white- enameled sheet metal tops with raised edges. Revolving stool prevent undue rowding , , ae a SS eed — es At East Pittsburgh the Westinghouse Electric & Mfg. Co. Has Built What Is Probably the Largest Industrial Cafeteria in the Country 1527 1528 close attention be paid to features which would insure the greatest possible service from the facilities pro- vided. That this problem was solved with a marked degree of success is indicated by the, fact that the restaurant constructed will feed approximately 9000 people an hour. The Westinghouse cafeteria building is 100 x 300 ft., with three stories and a basement. It is of brick and concrete construction, fireproof, and attractive from an architectural standpoint. Braddock Ave- nue, just across the street from the main group of Located on buildings of the Westinghouse plant, it is convenient for a maximum number of employees. The entire first and second floors of the building are devoted to cafeteria purposes. On the first floor is an exclusive cafeteria for women and another for men. The second floor is occupied by one cafeteria for both men and women. On the third floor is a dining room for foremen and department heads of the company, the kitchen and an auditorium. In the basement is refrigerating machin- ery and a laundry. The building was planned and built so as to effect the closest harmony structure and the equipment. So well has this been done that 3000 people ean enter the building, eat their lunches and be out again in 22 min. The employees going to the second floor enter at the center and proceed up an incline, or ramp, whence they go to the of the cafeteria After eating, they depart at either Thus there is between the section nearest to them. end of the building down other ramps. a continuous circulation of workpeople in and out all through the luncheon and supper hours. The ramps are built on a 14 per cent grade and are very easy to negotiate. They may be crowded to capacity, and yet, as the movement is all in one direction, there is no confusion. Similar ramps extend to and from the third floor, and separate entrances and exits are pro- vided for the first floor cafeterias. One of the principal causes of delay in a cafeteria is the indecision of a few in the line waiting to be served. To overcome this difficulty the Westinghouse company placed a continuous belt before each service counter. As the employee enters the line he picks out his tray and silverware, as he does in an ordinary cafe- teria, but instead of carrying it or pushing it along on a rail, he places it on the moving belt. As the tray moves along the employee follows it, first taking his bread and butter, which is ready, laid out on a plate, and then selecting his meat and vegetables. Usually there are two kinds of meat, or one of fish and one of meat, with vegetables. These are laid out on plates in THE IRON AGE December 9, 192 advance so as to avoid the delay of serving. 1 employees takes the plate he desires, puts it o1 tray which is being carried along by the belt, and passes to the dessert and beverage section. Her makes his selection out of two or three desserts at disposal and takes a cup of coffee or a glass of m By this time the end of the belt is reached, and tray slips off on to the end of the service counter. 1 moving belt permits 34 persons a minute to pass service counter. Although one might think that arrangement of this sort would prove confusing, employees, after a few trials, experienced little diffi in connection with it. At first one of the cafeteria tendants stood at the end of the belt so as to shut the motor in case there should be a jam. Despite th novelty of the belt there were few jams even the fi day. The employees quickly found that if the t passed along a trifle too fast they could hold it in plac on the belt while they were getting what they want At the same time the fact that the belt was movin; impressed the people being served with the necessity of haste. A plate meal of the kind just mentioned costs t} employee an even 25 cents. If he desires dessert he pay 10 cents more. After passing a checker, equipped wit a lightning coin changer, he sits down at a table. leaving all his dishes on the tray. After eating the employee picks up his tray and carries it to another moving belt, by which the tray is taken to an automatic elevator, or subveyor, which conveys it to the dish-washing room. It was first thought impracticable to provide continuous belts for the soiled dishes, but the contrary has proved the case, most of the employees being only too willing to do this small service in the interest of the scheme of operation. The few trays which are left on the tables are easily disposed of by attendants. Two dish-washing rooms are located in the center of the second floor. Trays of soiled dishes from that floor are received directly from belts, while trays from the other lunch rooms are handled by subveyors con- necting with belts on the first floor. From the belts on the first floor the trays are slipped into grooves of the proper size in the subveyors, it being unnecessary t stop the latter to perform the transfer. As the trays reach the second floor they are pulled off the subveyor by attendants and deposited on counters, whence they are passed through “Champion” continuous washing machines. There are two of these, each having a capacity of 14,000 dishes an hour. The machine is an inclosed box-like apparatus, containing sprays of hot soapy water which are directed against the dishes lic] qaisn- Trays of Soiled Dishes Are Received from Floor Below the Washing Room by Means of Subveyors The Building Is Equipped with Eight Service Counters, Each of Which Has a Moving Belt for Carrying the Trays of the Patrons. An average of 34 persons a minute pass the service counter ~ during meal periods December 9, 1920 T TT. 4iiu Above Is a Motor- Driven Slaw Cut- ; ; ter and a Potato i® Peeler. At the < right a coffee mill and bread slicer, the latter cutting 150 slices per min. from almost every angle, melting all grease. The temperature of the water is so high that by the time the dishes pass out of the machine they are dry. They are then placed on metal tables, shelves and cabinets, of which there are an ample supply in each of the dish-washing rooms. The kitchen is located on the third floor and was equipped with an eye to convenience and ease of operation. As the lunch periods are necessarily brief, the necessity for expeditious handling of food was apparent at the outset and hence particular atten- tion was given to labor-saving devices. The kitchen has three sections of combination coal and gas ranges of the Lang type, which burn either soft coal or gas with equally good results. A feature of the range is that when gas is used not all of the urners have to be utilized all the time. As soon as the tops and ovens are thoroughly heated the burners may be turned off, thus greatly reducing the amount of gas onsumed. A Garland double gas broiler, for broiling steaks, fish and poultry, has also been provided. This as an adjustable gridiron. Another feature of the kitchen is a combination cook’s table, steam table and warming closet. The steam table is in the center of this combination outfit, with doors on both sides ar- ranged so that it is accessible to the cooks and waiters. On each end is a table for service. For cooking soup two 60-gal. iron-jacketed steam-heated stock kettles have been provided. The jackets are over the entire bottom of the kettles and two-thirds of the way up the These are said to be superior to full-jacketed oilers, as they insure boiling from the bottom, which s the way soup stock should be boiled. For cooking vegetables the kitchen is equipped with three large sectional steamers. Each of these has three /mpartments, permitting different kinds of vegetables to be cooked at the same time. In addition, a steam roasting kettle, has been provided which will roast 100 to 125 lb. of meat at a time. Motor equipment is used wherever possible in the ‘itehen. There are motor-driven potato-mashers, po- desirable sides, tato-parers, bread-slicers, coffee-grinders and meat- choppers. The potato-masher has a capacity of 10 gal. per min., and the bread slicer will cut 150 slices a minute, The refrigerator space in the kitchen is exceptionally IRON 1529 AGE The Potato Has a Masher Shown Above Capacity of 10 Gal. of Potatoes a Min ey ree 5) eat f Two Rooms Has a Continuous Dishwashing Machine with a Capacity of 14,000 Dishes per Hr large, providing ample cold storage. The refrigerators are constructed of cork and cement, and are cooled by mechanical means. There is a freezing room, and sep- arate compartments for meats, vegetables and produce A bakery has been provided which is equipped with two large electric ovens in which are baked all the pies and pastry the cafeteria uses. There is also a Read motor- driven dough-mixing machine. All of the supplies for the kitchen enter through a receiving room, which has two large scales for weigh- ing meats and provisions, and is so arranged that all the food received is sent to places of storage or is used directly. After the meats are weighed on the receiving platform, they are carried by overhead monorail to a meat compartment in the cold storage roon Another overhead track conveys the meats to the shop as they are needed. A feature of the butcher shop is a motor-driven meat chopper of the silent type. From the kitchen the food is carried to the two lower floors by means of subveyors. The latter operate continuously like the endless chain on an old-fashioned pump and thus the service from the kitchen to the floors below is expeditious. From the subveyors the food is conveyed to the steam tables and plate warmers behind the service counters. The various service counters in the cafeteria are built of polished black steel with nickel silver tops. Just beneath the top there is a heating space for keep- ing plates of food hot and at one end is a cool section for chipped butter. Besides steam tables and additional sucher — 1530 THE IRON AGE a. Setanta ..ncekuaaie December 9, 192) The Auditorium on the Top Floor of the Building Has a Capacity of 1000 plate warmers back of the service counters there are stands for carrying reserve supplies of pastry, pies and bread, ice cream and milk cabinets, coffee urns, salad tables and a special refrigerator. There are 12 coffee urns in the cafeteria, each having a capacity of 30 gal. The lunch rooms are supplied with tables having white-enameled sheet metal tops with raised edges. In the second floor cafeteria and in the men’s section on the first floor there are revolving stools secured to the floor. In the women’s portion of the first floor cafeteria, chairs are provided. The advantage of the stools is that they prevent undue crowding and tend to eliminate confusion. The seating capacity of the second floor cafeteria is 1500. ; On the third floor is the dining room of the foremen and department heads of the company, called the East Pittsburgh Club. It is equipped with tables having Carrara glass tops and with chairs. The seating capac- ity is 500. Waiter service is furnished and the same scale of popular prices prevails as in the regular cafe- teria floors, with the difference that there is a some- what more extended variety of foods offered in the menus. There is a special service pantry and a small dish-washing room adjoining the East Pittsburgh Club. The refrigerating plant of the cafeteria is located in the basement. It is equipped with a large Baker ice-making machine and a “Champion” brine ice-cream freezer. Here also is cooled all the water that is sup- plied to sanitary drinking fountains which are located throughout the building. There is also a laundry in the basement, with equipment for washing table linen, towels, and employees’ coats and aprens. It also has a large steam dryer. Two meals a day are served at the cafeteria build- ing—luncheon and supper. The supper is mainly for those working overtime. Operation of the cafeteria at the supper hour is the same as during luncheon, with the exception of the checking and paying. The office help and other salaried employees who do not get paid for overtime are given supper checks. These they give to a cashier as they enter the serving lines. The em- ployees who are paid overtime are required to pay for the meal. They pay the cashier before entering the line. An important feature of the cafeteria building is the large assembly room on the third floor. This is equipped with a motor-driven moving picture machine, has a large stage, and can seat nearly a thousand peo- ple. It is used both for purposes of entertainment and instruction. Often a gathering is assembled im- mediately after the noon lunch hour. The room is also at the disposal of employees for various entertainments and diversions which they may arrange. On the Sat urday evening following the opening of the cafeteria a boxing match was held in the auditorium. In constructing so large a cafeteria with such com- plete labor-saving equipment the Westinghouse Electric & Mfg. Co. not only made a heavy investment, but took a step which had few, if any, precedents in the annals of industry. The experiment was undertaken on the theory that ample returns would accrue in the increased efficiency of the working force, and that the judgment of the company was sound has already been demon- strated. The equipment of the building throughout was furnished by Albert Pick & Co., Chicago. The structure was designes by B. H. Prack, industrial engineer, Pitts- burgh. The tolerances on cold rolled strip steel tabulated in THE IRON AGE of Nov. 18 are plus or minus toler ances, and not plus and minus. In other words, tolerances give the fractional allowance both above and below the required or specified thickness. A debate on “Increased production must come fron improved management and not from augmented equip ment” is to be conducted by the New York Chapter of the Society of Industrial Engineers on Monday eve! ing, Dec. 13, in the Engineering Societies Building, New York. The affirmative side of the question is to be taker by William B. Ferguson and Nicholas T. Ficker, and the negative by L. P. Alford and Dr. Frank B. G breth. The secretary of the chapter is J. D. Hackett 2 East Twenty-third Street. A contract for the construction of a 250-ton revolving crane to be mounted on the hull of the United States battleship Kearsarge has been awarded to the Wellmar Seaver-Morgan Co., Cleveland. It is the intentior transport the ship, under its own power, with turret and guns on board, to any port where the crane servic is required. Preparatory to the mounting of crane, the guns, turrets and armor will be removed, and a circular steel foundation, 60 ft. in diameter, w be constructed on the deck. The jib will be required to handle its maximum loads at far reaches and great heights. Two main hoist blocks, each having a capaci’) of 125 tons, will be suspended from the jib, side by sic Tne } 3 The National Society of Industrial Engineers selected Milwaukee as the seat of the 1921 annual co! vention, to be held April 27 to 29 at the Auditoriun This announcement was made at the monthly meeting of the Milwaukee Society on Dec. 2 by Dwight T. Far’ ham, vice-president of. the National organization, W' was the guest of honor. Mr. Farnham spoke on “Th Industrial Situation in Europe.” Three Shifts in the Steel Industry Results of an Investigation Covering Plants of Twenty Companies Which Have Adopted the Eight-Hour Turn—The Questions of Increased Cost, In- creased Force and Increased Output—Testimony Not Uniform on All Points, but Largely Favorable to the Short Day N recent months Horace B. Drury, formerly of the Economics Department of Ohio State University and lately with the Industrial Relations Division of the United States Shipping Board, visited iron and steel plants in the United States working under the three-shift system. At a largely attended meeting in the Engineering Societies Building, New York, on Friday evening, Dec. 3, Mr. Drury presented the results of his investigation before the Management and Metropolitan sections of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, the New York section of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers and the Taylor Society. The investigation was directed from the office of Morris L. Cooke, consulting engineer, Philadelphia, with whom Mr. Drury was associated for the purposes of the inquiry. Mr. Drury’s report, apart from the charts accompanying it, consisted of about 16,000 words, of which he presented an ab- stract at the meeting. Below is given an extended synopsis of the report, many portions appearing in their entirety. Extent of the 12-Hour Day night shift exchange places. The actual percentage of steel industry employees who under the two-shift system have been employed twelve hours a day has been variously estimated at from 26% to 52 per cent. would seem to be that, so far as concerns those continu- us operation processes which make up the heart of the steel industry, such as the blast furnace, the open- hearth furnace, and most types of rolling mills, to- gether with the various auxiliary departments neces- sary to support these processes and make a complete plant, the bulk of the employees work 12 hours. The proportion of 12-hour jobs in these places is not a full The truth of the matter ] The seven-day week is also a common feature of open-hearth work, though some open-hearth furnaces operate only six and a half days a week, and some only six. Rolling mills rarely operate longer than six days a week. Why the 12-Hour Day Persists The development and continuance of the 12-hour day in the steel industry was the rather natural out- come of special conditions, an understanding of which must precede any intelligent approach to the problem of putting the steel industry on three shifts. In the first place it is of the utmost importance to understand that most of the work in the steel industry 100 per cent, for the reason that in many of the de-_ is quite intermittent in character. In most plants one partments there is a certain amount of work, usually is told that a man does f a common labor or me- hanical type, which can be concentrated in day- ight hours and is common- y organized on a 10-hour asis. But all the shift n, all the men whose resence is essential to carrying on of the rocesses, from the chem- t and bosses down to the west helper—the techni- graduate, the Ameri- an-born roller, and the killed foreigner — all these, with very few ex- ‘eptions, work 12 hours. Most likely the percentage 12-hour workers for whole plant—which we assuming is entirely, ilmost entirely, devoted the more fundamental processes—will be siderably over 50 per possibly two-thirds. ne lhe Seven-Day Week should be added that ease of blast fur- s there is not only the ir day but the seven- week, and with the lay week there is ated one very ob- nable feature and the 18-hour or -¢-hour turn which comes ‘oO one-half the men when- the day shift and the HeeeneeRruRmeneyy rer rtesmns vane rc /rHNE TEED OPE ;UnEPBaREDEPRRTERERRERORE EET rT Results at Three-Shift Plants Mr. Drury recently visited practically all of the 20 American iron and steel plants which are now running on three shifts. His conclusions are in substance these: In order to get the shorter hours the men have been willing to make substantial concessions in daily wages. It has been found that a 25 per cent increase in hourly rates is ample to compen- sate the men for a four hours’ loss in pay. To give all those now on twelve-hour work a 25 per cent increase in wages, and cut down their day from twelve to eight hours, would cost a manu facturer of pig iron about 21 cents a ton. If all the departments in a steel plant were to be changed from two to three shifts, with no i crease in efficiency, exhaustive analyses made by the Government have shown that the total cost of steel products, including blast furnace, open- hearth furnace and rolling mill operations, could not, on the average, be increased more than 3 per cent. By taking care, some manufacturers going o1 eight hours have been able to reduce their force of men 10 per cent—some more. Others have found that the quality of their open-hearth steel has improved and that the expense for fuel and wear and tear on furnaces has been substantially reduced. Others have found that their rolling mill output has gone up 20 or 25 per cent. To-day, with the tendency to slack times i! the steel industry and increasing unemployment, the three-shift system could be introduced with much less difficulty than in recent years—more willingness of the men to accept moderate wages and to increase their efficiency Ou reTORe HEE: 1483: serveeRTTOCErereY “1531 not work more than six or seven hours on a 12-hour turn, and to one passing through the works this is the general impression conveyed. At one of the blast furnace plants visited a measurement of the working time by efficiency engineers showed that on the average the men were employed less than 50 per cent of the time. Much the same thing is true of open-hearth work, and in the case of rolling mills there are apt to be long waiting periods, or, espe- cially in certain kinds of work, the men are apt to work in spells. So in all these main branches of the indus try, the work i in almost all cases highly in termittent, and while the men are in the plant 12 hours, it is doubtful whether on ordinary days they are actually occupied as long a time as are the men in most 10-hour, and perhaps in a good many 8-hour plants. Men Do Not Work Hard Nor during recent years has the work which the men perform when they are working usually been — of a very heavy character. Once this was so. A good deal of heavy labor still remained at the time when Mr. Taylor did his celebrated work at Bethlehem. But nowadays you do not find the pig-iron handler or anybody shoveling ore. The pig casting machines, the open-hearth charging machines, not to mention the blast furnace skip hoist, the electric crane, and the mechanically operated rolling mills, have revolutionized the industry. There is a good deal of cleaning up work that is not pleasant while it goes on, and odd jobs of varying degrees of difficulty, considerable shoveling at times around the open-hearth furnace, and severe labor on the hand-operated rolling mills. But for the most part the steel worker of to-day is simply moving levers, or watching and waiting while the heat and machinery do the work. There is still a large element of hazard, and in places a good deal of exposure to heat; but conditions for the most part are far from being of a shocking sort—especially when one has become used to the spectacular magnitude of every- thing and realizes that the machinery does not rest on the men. But while the men may not be actually working all the time a certain force of men is needed for emer- The work in a steel plant is irregular in its Some days everything goes perfectly and the work is slight. Other days there is a lot of trouble and for hours all hands will be needed. Furthermore, a part of the idle time, especially in the rolling mills, is due to waiting for ingots, or to time lost while changes are made in the rolls. The complete elimina- tion of mishaps and badly balanced conditions, though highly desirable, would be unusually hard of attain- ment in an industry where the things to be correlated are as unwieldy as in the steel industry. So a con- dition has become general in which the managers choose to have on hand a fairly adequate number of men, working at an intensity which permits them to stay around for 12 hours. gencies. irregularity. Why Foreign-Born Workers Favor the 12-Hr. Day So far as the men are concerned, they have for the most part acquiesced in the 12-hour day because phys- ically the manner of work was such that they could stand it, and financially they were receiving in ex- change for spending their spare time in the works an additional hour’s pay for every extra hour they worked. The typical steel worker, whose psychology has ac- quiesced in and done a great deal toward forcing the 12-hour day on the steel industry is an unmarried man without a real home in this country whose one idea is to earn just as much money as possible and then go back to Europe. Or he may be married, but working to bring over his family. Men of this special type would often be willing to work four extra hours for almost nothing. Outside is alien America. Inside is the one environment to which they have become in a measure accustomed. Oustide are the squalid streets and often wretched dwellings, and nothing special to do except to dissipate the money that one is trying to save. Inside are one’s fellow workmen and companions. In many plants lounging rooms are provided; and in some there are classes in English during the men’s leisure time. One smokes, talks, reads if he is able to or cares to. On the night shift everybody sleeps a part of the time, from the boss down—though it is not offi- cially supposed to be this way—and there is a good deal of sleeping in the daytime. Often, however, the day shift is only 11 hours long, the men feeling that if they are going to work at 6 P. M. anyway, they might as well go at 5, thus making a night shift of 13 hours and a day shift of 11. The Worker and Shop Life In fact, there has grown up among these foreigners, and among the Americans as well, a special mode of existence in which the shop rather than the home, or the other outside institutions, has become to a large extent the center of living. Just as_ sailors have learned to spend their lives at sea, miners to spend much of theirs underground, and traveling salesmen and engi- neers to spend much of theirs away from home, so the THE IRON AGE December 9, 1920 steel worker spends his life in the shop. And whi), those of us in other callings this might seem lik; last thing that we would want to do, to the steel wo himself this special mode of life is sometimes not | out its attractions, and—especially after he grady into an office—it may become a sort of glorious ¢} This, of course, is the idealistic side of the pi Not all of the steel workers are of one mind as : desirability of this manner of life. Nor is it al] so or satisfactory. But this picture is a true one to a considerable extent, and keepihg in mind always great flood of foreigners whom love of money or other ambitious motive has torn away from their old tural attachments in Europe and brought across the it helps to explain the often repeated statements steel men that they would be glad to abolish the tw: hour day, but the men are against it. War Labor Shortage a Factor During the war, and then again during a period many months beginning not so very long after th: mistice, it was so difficult to get men as to constitu an important if not a decisive factor in keeping man, steel manufacturers who might otherwise have gone on three shifts from doing so. That the sudden introduc tion of the three-shift system would have put the st: industry to a real hardship if not an impossible task is evidenced by the fact that the shortage of labor eve: without going on three shifts was such as to make n essary unusual measures. Thus in the last year or two there has been a constant stream of negro and in som places Mexican labor moving into the steel industry. Possibly the shorter day would in the end widen the group of labor to which the steel industry could appeal, and in time be its own solution to the problem of labor shortage. But at best this is problematical and would not prevent a difficult situation from arising at the out- set. Besides the shortage of labor, the shortage of houses in steel towns has presented another very seri- ous obstacle. Reasons for Three Shifts While the general opinion of well-informed stee! men, even those who are very much in favor of three shifts, is that the twelve-hour day is not hard on the men physically, such a statement is probably only ap- proximately correct. It is hard to believe that twelv: hours in the shop is as good for a man physically as eight hours in the shop and the balance outside. It seems possible that if we had health records as accu- rate as those which we will later examine for the qual ity of open-hearth steel, we would find that eight hours would keep a man in better health and increase his longevity in comparison with what it would be under twelve hours. When something goes wrong on the inside of the blast furnace, when the open-hearth furnace needs con- stant atttention during a long period of hours, then there can be no doubt that the twelve-hour day is 4 strain. Also the twelve-hour day when joined with the seven-day week makes an especially vicious combina- tion. It means that once every two weeks or so a man is on continuous duty for eighteen or twenty-four hours, while only once during this two weeks’ period does he get off for any longer period than twelve hours. The system is without a factor of safety, so that when emergencies compel a man to work overtime, or stand some one else’s turn, strain at once sets in. The long hours also have the indirect effect of stimulating a man to excess when once in a while he does break over the traces and take a day or several days off. What Kind of Citizens? Yet the principal argument against the two-shift system is not the physical argument. It is not so muct because of what goes on inside the shop as because ol what a man misses outside that the steel workers '" mas these later days are beginning to change their mine: about the advantage of the twelve-hour day; = many other persons, both outside and inside the = roD- industry, are becoming concerned over the same P lem. , What sort of a home life, one hears it asked on all December 9, 1920 sides, can a man have who, including the time lost in coming and going, is on the job practically thirteen hours every day? For a few years the ambitious, newly- arrived immigrant may seek such a life; and through- out life, the dull man, or the one-interest-in-life man, may run on contentedly on this schedule. But any definite continuation of such a system for a block of several hundred thousand persons would simply mean the accentuation and continuance in American life of hose lines of class and culture which immigration has already made too dangerous and deep. Who wants to have in America a class of men who do not know what to do with themselves unless they are under some one else’s orders? Is this the way to raise the general level of literacy and personal capacity, and build up in \merica a civilization in which we may take pride? The argument against the twelve-hour day based on the proportion of a man’s time which it consumes is in short simply unanswerable both from the standpoint of individual freedom and development, and from the standpoint of national power and culture. The Future of the Labor Body There is, however, another objection to the twelve- hour day which should appeal especially to the members of the Taylor Society, and to all those engineers who are interested in the more effective utilization of human labor; and that is the fact that, so long as the steel jobs are on a twelve-hour basis, the way is practically closed against the building up in the industry of any substan- tially more efficient or responsible labor force. The attitude of the workman, in feeling that he must hang back from work about half the time; the attitude of the foreman who feels that to get anything done at all he must drive; the lax moral tone which must pervade an industry where sleeping is tolerated—all these can- not but be reflected adversely in the attitude of the men toward waste, toward care of tools and equip- ment, toward responsibility for quality in the product, toward absenteeism, and toward the development of a scientific spirit which will seek to make a little labor go a long way. Who will deny that in the long run a brighter future is bound to lie before an industry which has learned that work is work, and has decided that long, dull hours, and half asleep workmen will no longer 1.9 ao! Three Shifts in Other Industries What, taking the country as a whole, is the drift to-day in matters of hours of labor? The steel indus- try is the very last of all the industries in the United States in the matter of eliminating long hours. The chemical industry here ranks next to the steel industry, but the chemical industry in recent years have made great strides toward changing from the two-shift to the three-shift system. The glass industry, which was once on two shifts is now for the most part on shorter THE IRON hours. In coal mining there are some pumpmen and others who work twelve hours; but the proportion of such persons in the whole industry issmall. The paper industry was once on two shifts and still is in some localities, but most of the plants covered by the study of the United States Bureau of Labor statistics evi- dently had gone to the shorter day. Railroading not many years ago operated on long hours; but first the basic eight-hour day was introduced and now the actual eight-hour day is rapidly coming in. Even on ships the three-watch system became universal for American ships in 1919, the only exceptions now being radio operators, and the sailors and stewards on the Great Lakes. Three Shifts the Rule in Europe In Great Britain the movement towards three shifts was begun in blast furnaces as long ago as 23 years; and by ten years ago was so well under way as to be the rule in the sheet and tin-plate industry of Wales, and a common practice in the blast furnaces of the north of England. The late war retarded the rounding out of the three-shift system in England, but in March, 1919, those furnaces and other branches of the steel industry which had not already done so went over to three shifts; and to-day persons returning from Eng- land state that the three-shift system is the accepted practice throughout the English steel industry and is working to the satisfaction of all concerned. In Belgium an agreement was entered into between the employers and workers by which beginning with Jan. 1, 1920, the eight-hour day was to be observed for blast furnaces. In France, a law of April 23, 1919, es- tablished the principle of the eight-hour day, leaving to public administrative regulations the fixing of the conditions under which the principle should be applied. Without waiting for such regulations to be issued, how- ever, the French employers and employees in the metal industry, and a number of other industries, made their own agreement, to go into effect on June 1, 1919. In Germany the law also limits the working day to eight hours, subject to such exceptions and conditions as may be defined by decree or administrative order. In Sweden the 48-hour week is generally applied in iron works. In Spain the eight-hour day was first adopted by agreement for iron and metal workers in a long list of cities, and then effective Oct. 1, 1919, the eight-hour day was established by royal decree as the general rule for all industries. In Italy there is an agreement limit- ing hours in the iron and steel industry to eight hours a day. Unless it be in the Orient there is, therefore, no im- portant seat of the steel industry present or prospec. tive excepting the United States, where the two-shift system has not already passed away. It is to be hoped that in this matter we will not try to hide behind the Japanese, Chinese and Hindus. Experience at Five Plants Working Three Shifts HE steel industry is face to face with the inevitable. The change is coming; and the chief question is not whether it will come, but in what manner is it to be rought about? How will it work? How much will st? Is it possible to bring the change about so that nstead of its being a financial loss, it will be a gain? lt was in order to obtain light on the answers to these estions that during the last three months I have vis- | practically all of some twenty steel plants, which, ng how things were going, have alreday changed 1 two to three shifts. And it is the results of the riences of these companies which I propose first illustrate and then to summarize. Before this study was started there was no ex- istive list of three-shift plants, and the people in plants themselves usually knew of only one or two r plants which had gone on three shifts. So the thod of discovering the plants was largely acciden- ‘al, and almost up to the end of the study new plants Were being found. Commonwealth Steel Co. The Commonwealth Steel Co. was the first of any of the companies mentioned to go on three shifts and we are indebted to a scientific study made by R. A. 3ull, then production manager of the company and later president of the American Foundrymen’s Association, for some of the most exact data that have been collected on the relative efficiency of two-shift and three-shift work. The business of the Commonwealth Steel Co. is the making of steel castings. As foundry work is rarely carried on as a continuous operation, the only depart- ment of this company with which we need concern our- selves is the open hearth department, which contains four open hearth furnaces—though some mention will be made of the boiler room. The Commonwealth Stee Co. put its open-hearth department and boiler room on three shifts in 1911. Chart I shows the results of mak- ing the change from two to three shifts on the labor efficiency of steel making, in particular as regards the quality of the product, the conservation of fuel and 1534 materials and the efficiency with which the furnaces were regulated. In order the more completely to shut out all dis- turbing factors, Mr. Bull limited his study to the four weeks immediately preceding and the four weeks immediately following the change in shift sys- tems, because in this period no change was made in other conditions about the plant. It was not to be expected, of course, that anything like the full benefits of the shorter hours would be rea- lized at the very start, particularly in advance of any special effort to get better efficiency. Mr. Bull found that on those points where it was possible and fair to extend the comparison another four weeks, the second four weeks of three-shift operation showed a marked amen ysesamnnnrrmannNE Tina sti veyvesevensentent tepeeeusaans er eoeeesrnvensenentay THE IRON AGE Herons nanesnenenragannone December 9, 1920 department in which the men are constantly on toes, by day and by night, watching the furnac: carefully that the heats are obtained on schedule. only is output better, larger, and more regular there is a saving of materials, of wear and tear or furnaces, and a prolongation of the life of the furna In going from two to three shifts the Commonwea Steel Co. increased the hourly wage rates paid open hearth department by from 16 to 22 per cent. In the boiler room it was found possible slightly reduce the number of men on duty at any one time, so that the total wage costs per twenty-four hours was few cents lower on three shifts than it had been on tw after allowing for advances in hourly rates of 14 a: 19 per cent. Chart 2 shows the way in which A4ALUUUNEEUENEEDUAELLONANSRUAEOROUREONTEOEUOGG FONONLTONEHCAGAHLUONEOLONNEDIONNDONCE SeGRDEONNORENED LL CUEECTENSUIONERCI eETONECETORNNOOEEENNL OTEOOEOTerneONPrNNROOEE Various Plants Having the Eight-Hour Day Taking first blast furnaces, the following plants are working their blast furnaces on three shifts: The Colo- rado Fuel & Iron Co. at Pueblo; the Inland Steel Co. at Indiana Harbor, near Chicago; the International Har- vester Co., at South Chicago; the Ford Motor Co.’s River Rouge plant, at Detroit; the McKinney Steel Co., at Cleveland; the Upson Nut Co., Cleveland; the Adrian Furnace, Dubois, Pa.; the Punxsutawney furnace, at Punxsutawney, Pa.; and a furnace or furnaces at Jose- phine, Pa. This list does not include any plants for California. as I went no further west than Colorado, but it is said that the steel industry of California, whatever it is, is on three shifts. The Iroquois Iron Works, a plant of the Steel & Tube Co. of America, with several stacks located at Chicago, also operated on three shifts with success for some months preceding the steel strike. Some five of the plants listed above have steel works and rolling mills as well as blast furnaces, and these departments are also on three shifts. The following plants, which have no blast furnaces, operate open-hearth furnaces and rolling mills on three gain over the first. Thus in the amount of extra pig iron charged, the weight before the change in shifts was 556 lb., the first four weeks after the change it was 424 lb. and the second four weeks 137 lb. Mr. Bull’s figures deal chiefly with the quality of the product. With C. M. Cooke, the present open-hearth superintendent of the Commonwealth plant, a man of wide experience in open-hearth work, not only in the Commonwealth plant but in twelve-hour plants in many places—with Mr. Cooke, I took up the question as to the way in which the men regarded the three-shift sys- tem and also its effect on open hearth output. Mr. Cooke testified that when once the men get accustomed to the three-shift system they are very much in favor of it and will not go back to two shifts even though tempted by much larger wages. The twelve-hour day keeps a man away from his home and family too long. Also on the matter of output, Mr. Cooke testified that while the Commonwealth plant had been on three shifts since before he went with them, he felt sure, as a result of his experience with both methods of opera- tion, that the output of an open hearth furnace could be increased 10 per cent within six months of its going on three-shift operation. One has to go about it in the right way, however. The men tend, on _ three-shift opereation, to run along in much the same manner of working as under two-shift operation, talking, reading the newspaper, sleeping, and in general conducting themselves much as they would at home. As long as all this is allowed the results will not be radically differ- ent from what they were before. But by putting an end to these habits and developing in the plant a condi- tion of alertness during the eight hours while the men are on duty, great changes can be accomplished. After about ten years of three-shift management, a condition prevails in the Commonwealth open hearth shifts: The Kansas City Bolt & Nut Co., Kansas City, Mo.; the National Enameling & Stamping Co., Granite City, Ill.; the Andrews Steel Co., Newport, Ky.; th American Rolling Mill Co., Middletown, Ohio; the Trumbull Steel Co., Warren, Ohio; the West Penn Steel Co., Brackenridge, Pa.; Follansbee Bros. Co., Fol- lansbee, W. Va. The following plants having open-hearth furnaces but no rolling mills are on three shifts: the Common- wealth Steel Co., St. Louis (works in Granite City, IIl.); the Duquesne Steel Foundry, Corapolis, Pa. The Allegheny Steel Co., Brackenridge, Pa., has its open-hearth furnaces but not its rolling mills on three shifts (aside from sheet mills). The Hoosier Rolling Mill Co., having a rolling mill at Terre Haute, operates on three shifts. In this list of three-shift plants no account has been taken of plants which have only sheet or hoop mills on three shifts, as that is the common practice everywhere, nor has any account been taken of plants which have some isolated department on three shifts, as is some- times true of a blooming mill or Bessemer converter worked out, and also the improvement in the evenness of steam pressure. National Enameling & Stamping Co. Located in the same city with the works of the Commonwealth Steel Co. is another three-shift plant which includes not only open hearth furnaces—ten in number—but bar, plate and sheet mills. The National Enameling & Stamping Co., which manufactures at its Granite City works the steel required by its chain 0! enameling factories (as well as steel for the general market) made the change gradually, department by de- partment, because the men had asked for it. ; Chart 3 shows the various departments with th number of men in each department working eight hours, 10 hours and 12 hours, as things are arranged this year It will be observed that the shift men are on eight hours but that the day workers are on ten, with a few odd men who are working twelve. The wage adjustment upon which the open-hearth men went on the shorter day was an increase in hourly rates of 12% per cent The company figures that the net increase in labor cost for the open-hearth work due to the change in the shift system was about 6 per cent. The output of the open- hearth furnaces has been increased 10 per cent per tur- nace during these six years. In the case of the universal mill, the change from two to three shifts was made without any increase 1 labor cost. This was because there was a substantia’ increase in output, the output now being 25 per cent larger than it was six years ago. Not quite all of the increase in output is due to the change from two : three shifts, but the company estimates that at least ” per cent increase in output is due to the shorter day. I have come across quite a number of plants where out- put on rolling mills has been increased in just about December 9, 1920 Me ' we HART 1—COMPARATIVE EFFICIENCY TWO-SHIFT AND THREE- SHIFT SYSTEMS, OPE N-HEARTH WOR K—Commonwealth Steel Co. 12-Hour 8-Hour neral results: Shift Shift Extra pig iron charged, Ib 556 424 Fuel oil consumed per heat, gal.. 1275 1138 a Fuel oil consumed per ton of metal charged, gal 55 49 "y Longest intervals between reversal of burners, min 28 26.7 ¥ Cracked castings, per cent........ s ; 0.49 0.37 hemical tests: Maximum phosphorus, per cent 0.022 0.078 Maximum sulphur, per cent ‘ 0.025 0.025 Average carbon, per cent. . . correct correct Average phosph»'rus, per cent 0.011 0.011 Average sulphur, per cent 0.022 0.022 Average manganese, points under 2 correct Average silicon, points over ‘ l correct " »hysical teste: Maximum yield point per sq. in., per cent under ? 7.7 (over) Maximum tensile strength per sq. in., per cent under 7 1.4 Maximum elongation in 2 in., per cent under. 3 Maximum reduction of area, per cent under. ~The oO ow oF ee ; Average yield point per sq. in., per cent... 1 15.5 Average tensile strength per sq. in., per cent over 5.8 Average elongation in 2 in., points over 6 4.1 Average reduction of area, points over 9 7.2 his percentage, due, the managements say, very large- y, to the change to the shorter shift. The plate mill was put on an eight-hour day one year ago; that is, where it had before run two 10-hour shifts it was arranged to do the work in two 8-hour shifts. About the same production was obtained in 7 eight as in 10 hours, not because the men worked faster, but because the limited shearing capacity had kept lown the amount of work which could be turned out on the 10-hour shift. When the shift was reduced to eight hours the work was not held back in this way. Less than half of the men in the mechanical depart- nent were ever on 12 hours; but those that were (with a few exceptions) were changed from 12 to eight hours three years ago. It involved an increase in cost, but the figures are not obtainable. The boiler house is the nly department in which the company is not satisfied with the change to the three shifts, this being because feels that the men are here disappointed over the re- luction in daily earnings which the change involved. Che increase in labor cost to the company in this de- sartment was 10 per cent. In making the change to three shifts, the National Knameling & Stamping Co. always increased the num- er of men 50 per cent, excepting a very slightly smaller increase in the boiler house. The company be- ves that there are noticeably less accidents among nen working eight hours than among men working 12 iours, and the general impression of the management that the health of the employees is better while ‘ing 8-hour shifts than 12-hour shirts. Excepting the one department, the boiler house, the company is for the change to three shifts. Colorado Fuel & Iron Co. [he Colorado Fuel & Iron Co. has a steel plant at Pueblo, Colo., having six blast furnace stacks, 15 open arth furnaces, a Bessemer converter, and a variety mills for rolling blooms, rails, rods, etc., as well as vartments for making wire, various wire products, ts, etc. The