CONFESSIONS OF A COST-PLUS LOAFER
Confessions Of A Cost-Pius Loafer AFEW weeks ago Lindsay Warren, U. S. Comptroller General, told a Congressional committee that the cost-plus system of awarding war contracts is a "damnable and...
...But if we must draft someone we should draft the managers and those engaged in procurement and the allocation of contracts, those who have failed to coordinate the contracts and have failed to have the materials brought to the factories on time...
...The unpardonable sin, as I saw it, was not to look busy...
...A good many workers quit their jobs at the plant and went somewhere else...
...So many men were being hoarded on the job, members of the Committee reported, that there was actually not room enough for them to work...
...The scandalous conditions at the Norfolk Naval Yards shocked the nation...
...but lest Senators receive a wrong impression, let me say that I do not want them to think that the workers were at fault," he asserted...
...So we would start slowing down, and sometimes we would make one day's work last a week...
...The situation described by Sen...
...Glen Taylor, Idaho Democrat, sets forth his experiences as a war worker prior to his election to the Senate...
...A labor draft is not needed, he declared...
...Certainly the workers have not been to blame...
...There was a great deal of loafing...
...Taylor told how, when the shop was nearing the end of a contract, word would come down from above to slow down...
...but a man was damned forever if he did not look as though he were doing something...
...In the plant in which he had been employed, Sen...
...On page 1867 Sen...
...I have always done an honest day's work.' Perhaps a worker would say, 'I have a son in the service and I am leaving.' "Workers would leave, and in a week or 2 they would come back...
...The Senate's Mead Committee has uncovered evidence of appalling manpower wastage on cost-plus jobs...
...The only complaint I ever heard was that there was not enough to do...
...Taylor sought to point out that there was no , need for a labor draft, that the elimination of labor hoarding and other abuses would solve many of the manpower problems now vexing Congress...
...This outburst, coming from a man who is not given to extravagant and unfounded charges, served to focus attention on cost-plus as a major culprit in the current manpower muddle...
...If the Administration and the brass hats are sincerely concerned about a lag in production, they ought to quit talking about forced labor and start an offensive against forced loafing...
...The . higher the costs, the bigger the profits, of course...
...So they would come back...
...Cost-plus is the first objective...
...I, too, loafed...
...7, 1945...
...But for the real inside story of how cost-plus has lowered loafing from an art and raised it to a science, take a look at the Congressional Record for Mar...
...When we did not have any work to do we would stand around and count rivets or hit a piece of metal with a hammer once in a while...
...They all gave the same explanation of their reason for returning: 'The place I went to was much worse than this.' Possibly it was one of the big shipyards or steel mills...
...Cost-plus is the contract system by which the Government-, pays for war materials by guaranteeing the full costs and a fixed profit based on the cost...
...I came here to do an honest day's work...
...Taylor said, the work could have been done by 50 per cent of the men employed there...
...I can say in all truthfulness," Taylor asserted, "that I never heard any worker in the plant complain because he was overworked...
...Taylor is a familiar story to anyone who has talked with workers in plants holding cost-plus contracts...
...Forced Loafing And what was the workers' reaction to this cost-plus loafing...
...They would say, 'I cannot take this...
...Confessions Of A Cost-Pius Loafer AFEW weeks ago Lindsay Warren, U. S. Comptroller General, told a Congressional committee that the cost-plus system of awarding war contracts is a "damnable and outrageous" plundering of the American people and the Federal Government...
...1, Too, Loafed' Speaking against "work-or-fight" legislation, Sen...
...It did not make any difference whether one had anything to do or not...
...It was simply because we did not have enough to do...
Vol. 9 • March 1945 • No. 13
