WHAT IS THIS THING CALLED PRODUCTIVITY?

...Once the question of job security is not at issue, the real road to industrial progress is laid...

...In the field of productivity the task is all the more complicated since the methods and the skill with which to carry it through are largely lacking...

...A comparison between output and man-hours spent at work need not at all reflect the changes in industry's productive efficiency...

...Are working men and women turning out a fair day's work...

...Even though American industry successfully overcame its wartime handicaps by developing new production techniques, the very character of rapid change was prone to upset the usual statistics...

...The dictionary merely tells us that this word stands for "quality or state of being productive...

...While benefiting the economy as a whole, advances in industrial efficiency may, and frequently do, bring in their wake technological unemployment...

...There actually is no reason to suppose that this general trend was interrupted...

...When job content or work tasks are changed, resulting in larger output, the worker does not always benefit in increased compensation, even though the particular change is not accompanied by the installation of new or improved equipment...

...Labor-management cooperation, developed through established collective bargaining procedures, is the soundest way of insuring it...

...Most of the available figures on production related to the major types of finished products...

...THE DEBATE on productivity was spurred during the war because some indices of change in output per manhour in individual industries registered declines...

...Plans which used to manufacture goods for civilian consumption begin to turn out articles Of very different character to supply the armed forces...

...It is difficult even under the best of circumstances to evaluate the effect of any single factor on the advances or declines in productivity...

...Today, when we stand on the threshhold of the atomic age, there is no reason to suppose that we have reached the impasse of technological progress...

...The available statistical material on production also contributed to the general confusion...

...And for that matter how do you tell whether production is going up or down...

...Although our labor force has increased with the growth of our poulation, we were able to reach new production goals by working fewer hours and by eliminating children from industry...

...hence the importance of rising productivity to all Americans of whatever walk of life...

...Prices develop a definite tendency to "stick", to lag behind Jechnical advances...

...If, on the other hand, it is rising, who is to gain from such an improvement and to what extent...

...The fear of technological displacement, need not, however, threaten progress once the worker is assured that he as an individual, will not suffer through it...

...The level of our achievement was.highlighted during the late war when we were able, as the arsenal of democracy, to supply our own forces and those of our allies, and still maintain a high standard of living at home for the great masses of our population...

...The partisan . use of~crude statistical information by anti-labor circles was highlighted by admissions made by many industrial experts (economists, statisticians and cngeneers) that few plants actually possessed any quantitative information on labor efficiency...

...THE IMPOSSIBILITY of obtaining a precise measure of industrial productivity throws into focus the difficulty of answering general questions about the efficiency with which industry operates...

...Even when such effects are temporary, they cause real hardships to the affected workers...

...Some businessmen, in their public orations, speak as if the whole matter of productivity had to do with the degree of application of workers to their jobs...

...With the development of large-scale business, an increased number of articles are priced in accordance with a conciously determined price policy...

...Some think of productivity as a measure of performance of the economy as a whole...

...Others think of productivity in terms of individual industries or plants...

...A considerably body of opinion held that large-scale advances in industrial efficiency took place during the war, even though this fact could not always be demonstrated statistically...

...Indeed, many elements unrelated to the efficiency or performance of an enterprise may affect the ratio of output to man-hours in either direction...

...There is no disagreement, however, that over a period of several generations our ability to produce—the very rate of our productive activities—has grown considerably...

...Product redesign is common...

...If prodftetivtty has declined, who is responsible for it and what can be done about it...

...Where automobiles were produced, tanks ware manufactured...

...For that matter, since over the period of years there has taken place an unmistakable improvement in the product design and usefulness on the one hand, and on the other an increase in the integration of manufacturing functions as a result of the growth of large-scale business, the ratios between output and man-hours grossly understate the true increase in the ability of our economy to produce...

...The medium of intelligent collective bargaining, when labor and management can appraise . whatever information of statistical character is available with qualitative evaluation and informed judgments, offers the sole basis for mutually satisfactory adjustments...

...1 j These products would not, however, be reflected in the published figures of the industy's output, although the employees engaged in their manufacture would be counted in the data on employment...

...ODD BEHAVIOR of output to manhour relationship under the stress of war, however, is not unexpected...

...Our technological advances have been spectacular and our ways of doing things have improved...

...The considerable body of knowhow which workers have, but are normally hesitant to offer management, can be tapped to the benefit of all...

...The whole organization of industry suffers from cataclysmic spasms...

...Our future advances, just as in the past, will depend on the continued process of invention, on industrial adaption of new methods or techniques, on the skills and aptitudes end application of workers, and on improvements in man...

...ALTHOUGH THE INCREASED ability of the industry to produce creates the condition for the basic improvement in the general standards of living, the benefits of such progress are not automatically distributed to the worker-participants in the industrial process or, for that matter, to the consumers...

...Historically, as we noted, the trend is in a upward direction...

...At other times, the concept of productivity is used as though it were a measure of the degree of efficiency achieved in production...

...We produce more food, more clothes, more houshold equipment and other consumer things than ever before...

...And, of course, there is even less direct relationship between a worker's wages and his efficiency when he is compensated on a time, rather than on an incentive basis...

...In wartime, such products might have played a lesser role in the total output of an industry to the extent that some of its productive capacity was diverted to the manufacture of other goods, including war material and semi...

...One thing common to all these concepts is the desire to portray someone's ability to produce or the rate nt which production is carried out...

...even though the worker inr creases his output ten-fold, he can never double his pay...

...agerial functions...

...It is this improved obilitv to produce that has made our high standard of living possible...

...General shortages of raw material force the use of substitutes...

...The latter is readily affected by changes in the nature of the product (including changes in its quality or are exercised in its manufacture), by the amount of labor devoted to maintenance, repair and construction of productive facilities, and by the degree to which parts and supplies are obtained from outside sources as well as by technological advances in the manufacturing methods and procedures...

...Nor do workers get an automatic increase...

...No wonder that such an attitude, which fails to recognize the stake an individual worker has in his job, leads to low morale, dissatisfaction and resistance to change...

...Where light shoes were made for everyday wear, heavy army boots are turned out...

...manufactured goods such as repair parts...

...The man faced with the possibility of elimination of his job or his skills feels that his whole future existence is threatened...

...The very nature of industrys' endeavor changes in response to war needs...

...Lasare Teper Is research director of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union...

...e • WHILE DISCUSSING the positive aspects of advances in productive efficiency one cannot ignore the other side of the medal...

...He finds little relief in the realization that this misfortune is accompanied by a general social advance...

...Whatever is the source of increased industrial efficiency, the division of resultant savings among the different participants does not yield itself to a formula...

...Is the productivity of American industry on the increase or on the,decrease...

...e e e WE MUST DRAW a distinction between efficiency in performing a specific, unchanged work assignment and the performance of an enterprise as a* whole...

...Too frequently in the past employers, while preaching the doctrine of higher productivity and technological advancement, operated without regard of the effect of such advances on their workers...

...For labor's foes this proved a sufficient excuse to raise a hue and cry of alleged labor inefficiency...