Newspapers / Winston-Salem Chronicle (Winston-Salem, N.C.) / Sept. 29, 1979, edition 1 / Page 5
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(Occupation; !> I echnological innovations?new tools, new maI I chines, new processes?affect not onlv human soci- " ety hut, directly and immediately the producing workI ers. Today, it is possible to en\ is?on a societ> in whic^ I technology will liberate workers from much of the phvsiI cal drudgery and boredom that have marked their lives r in the past. Better tools permit workers to produce^more tanch I better) work; machines replacing tools save their f labor and multiply their production; and computer- p I programmed automated factories turn them into moni- | I loring engineers, employing mental more than phvsica' I skills. Nevertheless, workers typically have not welcomed innovations in production technology?far from it Nor I are they entirely mistaken in their apprehensions about ?|_n^Av4echnkjues. Quite apart from then principal fear? ^ I that it may bring unemployment? new technologv may have unforeseen effects on their working lives and perI sonal destinies. The outstanding historical example of the impact j of changing technology on workers' lives is the development of factory mass production. Even while ere ating the abundance that has transformed the modern world, mass production has had a dehumanizing effect which governments, workers' organizations, enlightened management, and modern social science still seek to mitigate. Fighting the Factories The modern factory system has an ancestr\ going hack many centuries. Medieval wool merchants in Flanders and Italy began "putting out"' their wool successive!) to spinners, weavers, fullers, and dyers in what amounted to factories scattered through a town. The system foreshadowed the'true factory both in increased volume of production and in the stimulation of class conflict. By no coincidence, history's first strike, in 1245, was by weavers of Douai, in Flanders. The "Commercial Revolution*' in which the Flemish wool entrepreneurs participated provided the basis for the later Industrial Revolution centered in 18th-century Britain. Spinning and weaving there were mechanized and steam-powered, multiplying products ity but alarming the hand weavers. In the early 19th century, bands of "Luddites," fearing loss of jobs, tried to destroy the new machinery but they were brutalK suppressed by government troops. In France, workers kicked machines to pieces with their heavy wooden shoes, or "sabots"?giving rise to the word "sabotage." Similar worker protests occurred in Germany and were memorialized by Nobel prize | winner Gerhardt Hauptmann in his drama 'The I Weavers." Who Would A Dear Editor: proposed 27th amend Before the taxpayers of _ ni^nt. then over 350 naWinston-Salem vote in the tional organizations such November special elec- as National Bar Asse-?tion, I hope they will ask ciation^ Commoii Cause. _ themselves the very perti- American Federarion of nent questions "Who Teachers and American - really profits?" and Civil Liberties Union, re"Who really pays?" if a presenting millions of new coliseum is built people, would be free to downtown. hold their conventions and The argument being sPend millions of taxable advanced bv coliseum convention dollars in proponents that a new Winston-Salem rather taxpayer-financed coli- v than Pennsylvania, Kenseum is necessary to com- tuckv, or Maryland. pete in North Carolina's Anyone who doubts convention business is that ERA ratification or shortsighted, hogwash. the convention boycott . . . 1 1 1 ! 1A 1 The best thing that means Dig ducks is mvuea could happen to North to inquire of the Miami, Carolina's convention Las Vegas or Chicago business is ratification of Chambers of Commerce the Equal Rights Amend- or Convention Bureaus as ment. If North Carolina to those cities' financial becomes the first south- losses in recent years eastern state to ratify the ^rom cancelled or unscheWith PayAi Financing are out, sav Before you finance a car. insist on from First Citizens Bank It s easy to handle your montniy paymeni any oay or ine tt with PayAnyDay there's nopenalty charge for la . date of last payrfient You can save i making payments in advance, or paying off y charge. Demand PayAnyDay auto ' Can Do Bank If your dealer doesn't offer F PayAnyDay.The Nc Only at First Citizen The best place to borrow v1c?n-bor fdlo ?, v9 7\i p.'st 1 a! Destinies L~^Bl V >? a^ British workers resisted another innovation: work i discipline. At his celebrated pottery works at Etruria. England. Josiah Wedgwood, in the latter halt ot the IMh | century. was one of the first to divide his labor force into sequential groups?potters, painters, tirers, finishers? achieving both increased production and enhanced quality. But the new arrangement required that workers conform to the pattern imposed by the flovs of production. Previously, as craftsmen, each performing the whole range of functions in pottery making, the workers had frequently "kept St. Monday" (taken Monday off). and on other days had sometimes deserted their benches for an ale or a game of handball. Wedgwood posted rules and lev ied fines, but remained. chronrcally vexed b\ labor troubles. Loss of -Dignity As powered machines supplanted skill with semi-skilj or fack of skill in industry after industry, workers in? Britain and elsewhere lost their old sense of creativity and even their-old dignity. An observer at a British trades-union congress in 1890 recorded the difference in appearance between the old aristocracy of Craft unionists. with their respectable dress, often including top hats and watch chains, and the "new" unionists, the shabby, nondescript factory workers. In America the industrial revolution at first produced a quite different effect. The wealth of natural resources and severe shortage of labor made the country highly receptive to the textile machinery spirited out of Britain (against ineffective laws forbidding its export), by Samuel Slater, a youthful immigrant of 1789 who became the "Father of American Manufacture." Native mechanics such as David Wilkinson and Paul Moody added Yankee improvements and helped found Amer?ica's own machine-tool industry, that ts, machines u> dUBMiiaHHi rena Benefit? duled conventions of ness would benefit the those national organiza- lower income segment of tions which,-tilce most of the community,what us^ believe^ha* ?equality could possibly more bene- of rights under the Jaw fit the lower income seg^ shall not be denied or * ment , primarily blacks abridged by the United and women, than legally States or any State on guaranteed equal opporaccount of sex." tunities, salaries and beAs far as the contention nefits? by coliseum study econo- < ^ _ _ . mist Dr. Alfred Gobar that Carolyn Hackney . c .. , . Pfafftown much of the new busi ILiiMiiiiiiHiiiiiiiiiMiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiniiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiJiiiiiiuiiiiiinMiiHiiHiiiimiiimiM Nows Deadline 1 Beginning October 12, 1979, the deadline for all ? E news articles and pictures will be 12 noon each s | Tuesday. If the articles are handwritten they must 8 5 be received no later than 12 noon on Monday. Articles and pictures can not be returned by S mail. They must be picked up at the Chronicle 1 ? office located at 516 N. Trade St. | NO EXCEPTIONS! 8 IniiuiiniiiiiiiiiiiiHiiiiiMiiiiuiiiiiHiiiiiiiiitiiiiiiiRiiwiiiiimniiiiiiHiiimiiiiiHunffi nyDayAuto penalties ings are in. PayAnyDay?The No Penalty Loan ?every month and every mile You can make >onth. Unlike many other financing plans. I te payment. Simple interest simply accrues from e nterest by paying early in the month, our loan early There's no prepayment penalty financing Only at First Citizens. The 3ayAnyDay. please visit or call us right away )PenaltyAutoLoan. .s. The Can Do Banlc. ' is the only place to bank'" C't & Trust Company I 1 ? 4 cotfEcnotis Kw |. TKWOtXKYATOCMAfia |J V yj ( make machines. It was not surprising, therefore, that the next major production breakthrough, interchangeable parts manufacture, achieved its triumph in America. The concept had originated in France and Britain, where experiments had indicated its promise, but craft-minded European industry held back. In America, Eli Whitney, John Hall, and others developed it in the governmentsupported arms industry. It soon gravitated to production of iron stoves, sewing machines, and farm implements. The American System By the time Henry Ford appeared on the industrial scene about 1900, interchangeable-parts manufacture was known throughout the world as "the American system." From Chicago and Cincinnati meat packing plants. Ford i got the inspiration for his assembly line, v hich brought parts directly to the workers in a continuous flow. No rules needed posting, no fines were required. The moving line's inexorable pace enslaved the men feeding ABOUT THE AUTHOR JOSEPH C.GIES has been Director of Publications for the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges since 1974. He was previously an editor for This Week Magazine and senior editor for technology for Britannica III of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. A prolific writer, he has published many stories, articles, and reviews in magazines and journals in addition to his books in the history of technology, which include By the Sweat of Thy Brow: Work in the Western World (with Melvin Kranzberg), Bridges and Men, and Wonders of the -Modern World. : Not having I is a luxury yo Wmk>. I V j I ^^TTiigrr ffre^:? t,*lf|ttMifiM^ !<^fe |^kLjSb:I Everyone's life creates them is life insur different demands. At North C What's Iu\ur\ to one person can give you a p( may be a necessity to someone else, the most precious But. besides food, shelter, and ed for in life, clothing, there are other things It can proi that most people need. And one of gencies. and incn CVf NORTH CI LIFE INSI Your family net Durham. North Carolin; cftft r ruinn c. i ninu PH' t Tie Chronicle, Saturday, September 29, 1979 Page 5 - \ Dseph C. Gies t. exacting repetitive functions performed vMth an mluman consistency. Assembly-line workers were turned nto the human machines satirized by Charlie Chaplin in us 1936 film "Modern Times." Meanwhile, at the turn of the century, a Philadelphia engineer, Frederick W. Taylor, dev ised a way to increase steel workers' output by minutely analyzing their jobs. By following Taylor's instructions, faithfully, a worker could substantially improve his piecework earntngs. But "Taylorism," or scientific management, copied and , * often abused, won a reputation for efficiency at the expense of humanity. A glimmer of insight into worker psychology came in the 1920s, quite by accident. In studying the effects ot improved illumination on worker performance at the W estern Electric Company plant at Hawthorne, Illinois, Elton Mayo was astonished to find that a control group, under the old lighting, improved its production as much as did an experimental group under better lighting. The 44 Hawthorne effect" showed that workers responded with better performance to the mere fact of being consulted, asked to cooperate, dealt with as human beings. Further experiments explored the relationship between man and machine and the worker subculture, virtually creating a new sociology. Human-factors engineering, an outgrowth of Taylorism and the Hawthorne experiment, sought to design machinery and equipment foTmaximum ease, convenience, and suitability. Automation ) The most recent stage in mass production, automation, came immediately following World War II (though machines basic to factorv automation 20 back to the Waltham Company in the 1880s). Workers' resistance in some industries, such as railroading and printing, has ~~ "T brought considerable conflict. Yet overall, automation's impact on employment so far has proved limited. See Page 19 v * If e insurance u can't afford* iE.1 ^^^h****>>''^ *^Mr#i^RF :WB?& &M :|^ft > ^Z. S : V-..,..v..w,, I I W 1 1M |i x^ ~ j&^k v v^Afl 4 9 ^^^^vliiBH9IHNMHHMllljlVv^^^v^^MMR3RMHiliHllii ance. if you should die. or money for arolina Mutual, we vour retirement. ")licy that protects Call as today and get started, .things you've work- It's nice to be able to buy a few luxuries once in a while. But /ide cash for emer- don't overlook a necessity like mie for vour famih life insurance. kROLIN A MUTUAL JRANCE COMPANY ?ds you. And life insurance. a 2^701 An equal opportunity emplover STREET, WINSTON-SALEM ONE: 724-5566
Winston-Salem Chronicle (Winston-Salem, N.C.)
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Sept. 29, 1979, edition 1
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