Word: grummans
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Turkeys for All. Despite its informality, the Grumman policy towards its workers is hardheaded realism. Everything is planned with one idea: will it help production...
...employes' orchestra to play for dancing during the lunch hour, volley ball, handball and base ball games. To the parents of new babies go record books, blue for boys, pink for girls. On Christmas, turkeys are sent free to everyone. This year, to make sure of getting them, Grumman bought the eggs and is now in the turkey business...
...biggest thing in the Grumman policy of realism is the incentive wage plan. Started a year ago, it was the first in the aircraft industry. It is also probably the simplest. Time studies of individual operations are eliminated. The incentive pay bonus is paid, not on individual operations, but on the output of the entire plant. Thus on half of all poundage over a fixed rate (.48 pound per worker per hour) everyone in the company, from janitors up to executives mating $8,000 a year, is paid a bonus every three months. Bonus for the last year...
...Problems. All of this, from turkeys to bonuses, is simply the Grumman way of getting the greatest production in the shortest time. As a result, neither absentee ism nor lack of manpower, the plagues of other war plants, have been a Grumman problem. Turnover, for all causes, including the draft, has been a small 2.3% so far this year, about half of the aircraft industry's average. Swirbul is fond of saying: "We're cold-blooded about all this, simply go out in the plant and tell the boys: you work a little harder and the company will...
...these reasons, coupled with the fact that Grumman workers are the fourth highest paid in the U.S. aircraft industry, and are ruggedly individualistic Long Island clamdiggers, chicken farmers, etc., no union is making any serious attempt to organize Grumman. The company has never had a strike or a slowdown. It has handled the explosive race problem just as smoothly, now has some 600 Negroes in all types of jobs. Worker morale is so good that Grumman can always strain production in emergencies. When the Navy lost an unexpected number of planes on Guadalcanal, Swirbul rallied the workers on a weekend...