Detroit, Mich.
Our school is going along nicely and while we are not perfecting
machine tool operators to the degree I would like because of the
necessity of rushing them through the school to the shop proper, we
are accomplishing, I think, that which we set out to do, namely, to
take away from the girl the fear of the shop and to give her a fair
knowledge of the tool she is to handle. The women undoubtedly have
benefited beyond measure by the short time spent in the school room,
and have gone into the factory with the confidence that carried them
through the first few days and made them efficiently productive in a
shorter period of time.
The training room is located in the smaller of our two plants and is
equipped with a lathe, milling machine, gear cutter, drill press,
profiler, etc., those being the tools upon which it was decided to
train operators. In charge of this room was placed an instructor who
had had some slight experience in a continuation school and _who
went to work under the direct supervision of a high grade specialist
secured from a well known eastern factory efficiency organization_.
The instructor was given no special instruction beyond being told
what we hoped to accomplish in the way of building up an organization
of women of more than ordinary ability and moral character.
The training room up to the present time has been used only in
connection with supplying the factory with women workers. Women of
the age of twenty-one and upwards have been taken, their references
carefully examined, and they have been given _from one to three days’
training in this school_. Because of the demand of the shop for help
it has not always been possible to keep them in a training room for
as long a period as would seem desirable, and in some instances they
have stayed only one day.
During the training period they have been paid the regular rate for
women, thirty cents per hour, which rate maintains after they enter
the shop until such time as they are placed upon a piece-work basis.
We believe, however, that through the medium of the training room we
shall be able to instruct women workers in machine tool operation so
they will go direct from the school room into the shop without fear
of what is to be encountered therein, and with a better knowledge of
the tool they are operating, and the reason they are operating it,
than they could possibly acquire through any other method.
[Illustration: Inspecting pistons and valves. Lincoln Motor Co.]
[Illustration: Machining Main Bearing Bolts. Lincoln Motor Co.]
[Illustration: Hand Milling Machines. Lincoln Motor Co.]
[Illustration: In the training department. Lincoln Motor Co.]
[Illustration: _New arrivals in Training Room—Lincoln Motor Co._]
The school is favorably looked upon by all of the employees, and in
those cases where it is found that a woman is not working out well
upon the work to which the school has assigned her, and is returned
to it for further instruction, she has in all cases gone back to
it with a cheerfulness and willingness that is both surprising and
gratifying.
The writer is of the opinion that the school in this factory has come
to stay and that when we build up our organization and get through
the strenuous times we are now experiencing, the advantage of the
vestibule school instruction will be given men employees as well as
women.
(Signed) J. M. EATON,
_Assistant to President Henry M. Leland_.