As we know, working for a company that claims it wishes to ‘cooperate’ with its workers, without a union of course, means being treated like a child and an inmate. The Studebaker experience before the U.A.W.

‘Just Folks: “Cooperation” in the Studebaker Auto Plant’ Edward Hatchel from Labor Age. Vol. 16 No. 3. March, 1927.

The writer worked as a machine operator for the Studebaker Corporation during two periods ‘totaling about a year and a half. The following description 1s the result of his observations and experiences with the principles and plans of this company’s schemes of Cooperation. As most everyone knows, Detroit, is the “openest” shop city in this country…The manufacturers are so supreme in their control of the labor situation that they have not even bothered to hand the workers an opiate in the form of a “company union”. Hence it may be interesting to know how they “co-operate.”

I. THE PRINCIPLES

(From the abstract of an address of Mr. C.B. Lippincott, head of the Co-operative Department of the Studebaker Corporation, printed in the Journal of the Society of Automotive Engineers for November, 1924.)

1. “Industrial prosperity depends on industrial peace, industrial peace on confidence—confidence of the management in the men, confidence of the men in the management—confidence develops co-operation—co-operation is essential to business—it is based on justice in the distribution of men, management and capital.”

2. On this basis “the problems of management remain in the hands of the men who are qualified to solve them and secures the good will of the men by fair treatment.”

3. “Give me what is due to me and I will do what I want with it” is the typical attitude of the American worker, says Mr. Lippincott. Hence the Studebaker corporation in its plans for “co-operation” will have nothing to do with “welfare” schemes which will give the workman help he does not want.

II. THE PLANS FOR COOPERATION

To develop this idea of co-operation and “secure the continuous service, loyalty and good will of the employees” the following plans were inaugurated under the administration of the Co-operative Department:

1. The Anniversary Check payment plan whereby the employee receives a check for five per cent of his yearly earnings at the end of each year’s service for the first five years and ten per cent thereafter.

2. One week’s vacation with pay after two years service.

3. The privilege of purchasing stock in the Corporation at the market rate and receiving in addition to the regular dividends, fifty per cent of the amount of the dividends on the stock owned from the company.

4. A life pension paid to each person over sixty who has been employed by the company for twenty continuous years.

5. Payment of $500 to the dependents of an employee who dies after five years of continuous employment by the company.

6. The Co-operative Department also publishes an “Employee’s Magazine,” called The Studebaker Co-operator and having as its motto “Just Folks—Working Together.”

III. HOW DO THEY WORK?

Take the magazine. It prints snap shots of the workmen’s babies, the baseball and bowling scores of the plant teams, personal items, etc. But, judging from its contents, its chief function seems to be to “Boost Big-Business.” Some examples “Thirty years ago industrial workers were making twenty cents an hour, a few owned their homes and the men who owned bicycles were considered fortunate. Big business has made it possible for workers to own modern homes, automobiles, talking machines and radios The better wages and higher standards of living of the American workman are due in a great extent to American policies and institutions and not to policies and programs advocated by certain radical groups today. Radical policies have been tried in Europe. The result has been financial depression, poverty—even starvation. Big business, lawfully conducted, is the greatest asset of the nation.” Criticism of the Child Labor Amendment on the ground that it will develop young criminals; reprints from a bogus “Labor” paper which repudiates La Follette’s candidacy, etc., are other expressions of the voice of labor in this “Employee’s Magazine.”

How They Let the Workman “Do What He Wants” With His Money

During the fall of 1925, most of the workers were able to get from three to five days work per week. From December 18, 1925 to January 11, 1926, they were given a three weeks vacation, without pay. Shortly after they returned to work, the foreman of the department and a representative of the Co-operative Department began to solicit the workers to get them to buy group accident insurance. A certain amount of money was to be deducted from the weekly checks of the employees and the Corporation was to contribute a certain amount toward the premiums as long as the men were in the employment of the company. Many of the men in my department refused to take it as they needed every cent they could get to make up for lost time. The assistant superintendent was then delegated to speed up the selling campaign. Despite the pressure exerted by the foreman, the representative of the Co-operative Department and the assistant superintendent, about twenty-five per cent of the men refused to take the insurance.

They were all called into the office of the superintendent’s office and given a long oration on the many favors the Corporation had bestowed upon them in the past and how this was another effort on the part of the company to demonstrate its solicitation for the well being of its employees. It ended with the remark that we would have to take the insurance in any of the plants in the city so we might as well take it here. And furthermore, if we did not like it we could get out. When he finished, all of the men except one were pretty much cowed into accepting the insurance and signed up for it. The man who refused was asked to stay after the others left, and was later told that he would have to take the insurance or get fired. He took the insurance.

How They Get Continuous Service, Loyalty and Good Will of the Employees

The anniversary check does help to keep the employees in continuous service. But what a bitter slavery it is! Time and time again, when the group insurance plan and the group wage payment plan were being forced on them, I would hear a workman say, “Well, my anniversary check is due next month, and when I get it, watch me get out.” And then when the incident blows over, they stick. But they are not being deluded about the management’s good will. As one worker expressed it “They have us by the seat of the pants and know we can’t do anything about it.”

A final example of how Studebaker “co-operates” with the men, in regard to wages:

The company replaced the individual piece-work system with the group or “gang” work system. This is a system of wage payment whereby the production of a group or department is totaled and a lump sum is paid to the entire group. It is then divided among its personnel who are arbitrarily divided into four classes by the foreman, on the basis of skill required on the operations performed, the amount produced, etc. Class “A” receives the most wages, class “B” somewhat less and so on down the scale.

Three or four weeks’ experience with the plan demonstrated that the men were losing by it from one to two and half dollars per day, although they maintained they were producing the same amount of work. Considerable dissatisfaction was expressed and the foreman called a meeting of the men. He urged the men to “get together and produce,” the assumption being that some of them, at least, were “laying down” on the job.

Many suggestions and criticisms were made without anything definite being decided upon. The foreman was asked if the company had any objections to the formation of a committee of the men to investigate the cause of the loss of pay. He said that they had none.

The next morning one of the workers placed a notice on the bulletin board calling a meeting of the men of the department at noon to discuss the group plan of payment and how it affected their earnings. Later in the morning the assistant-superintendent came to him and asked him to bring the men who were most dissatisfied to the superintendent’s office to “thrash out the issue before it became serious.” About ten or twelve men went to the office and had to listen to a long “spiel” by the superintendent, the sum and substance of which was that there were a hundred men waiting for each one of our jobs, that we could get out if we did not like it—and that there were no meetings to be held or workers’ committees formed at the Studebaker plant. His final words of wisdom were: “When you are in school you have to do what the teacher says, when you are in the army you have to do what the captain says, and when you are in the factory you have to do what the boss says. You are here to produce; we will do the thinking.” Surely this is “leaving the problems in the hands of the men who are qualified to solve them!”

IV. AN OPPORTUNITY FOR THE A.F. OF L.

This wage payment plan is being rapidly extended in almost all of the automobile plants. It is the cause of much dissatisfaction among the men and should prove a fertile field for unionization if only the A.F. of L. would utilize the opportunity for making good its promise to unionize the automobile industry. It is assuming a large order in attempting such organization, but it is offering the workers one hope of breaking the strangle hold that the employers have on the community.

To this task they must bring a clear insight and an understanding of the peculiar structure of the automobile industry, if they are to be successful in freeing men not only from the autocracy of other men, but from what is infinitely more destructive to the human spirit, slavery to the machine, as man is a slave to the machine in an automobile factory.

Labor Age was a left-labor monthly magazine with origins in Socialist Review, journal of the Intercollegiate Socialist Society. Published by the Labor Publication Society from 1921-1933 aligned with the League for Industrial Democracy of left-wing trade unionists across industries. During 1929-33 the magazine was affiliated with the Conference for Progressive Labor Action (CPLA) led by A. J. Muste. James Maurer, Harry W. Laidler, and Louis Budenz were also writers. The orientation of the magazine was industrial unionism, planning, nationalization, and was illustrated with photos and cartoons. With its stress on worker education, social unionism and rank and file activism, it is one of the essential journals of the radical US labor socialist movement of its time.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/laborage/v16n03-mar-1927-LA.pdf