Word: handwork
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1940-1949
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...bill had been endorsed by 48 Federal Government and state authorities,. 20 carrier organizations, 85 shippers' groups, 145 farm and livestock organizations, 108 business groups and 552 chambers of commerce and civic organizations. New Hampshire's Scripture-quoting Charles William Tobey saw in this the "fine Italian handwork" of the Association of American Railroads. It had "greased all the wheels." Cried he: "Before God, it smells to heaven...
...Work. But getting out the guns at Colt has long been hamstrung by a 100-year-old handwork tradition. In trying to graft war production of 6,800 guns monthly onto peacetime artisan manufacture of 400 yearly, Colt fell into a fearful production tangle. Typical example: Colt numbered all barrels at the beginning of assembly, as they had always done, and would not test finished guns unless they came up in sequence. Result: when one gun was pulled out because of a faulty part, the whole test line stopped. Quipped one worker: "Production was like a Rube Goldberg cartoon-everyone...
Incentive Pay. But the deepest quagmire for production was a fantastic incentive pay plan. Colt had always had incentive pay. When mass production came to Colt, it kept the same piecework rates as for the slow handwork. Thus semiskilled filers came to earn as high as $8,200 a year, while the highly skilled toolmakers made as little as $3,000 a year. Result: many workers drew big pay for little work, had no incentive to work harder, fearing rates would be cut if wages, became too fantastic. Colt went through a series of small strikes. The War Labor Board...
...brownish synthetic rubber "loaves" 24 hours before its rival. U.S. Rubber claimed the pennant for its plant at Institute, W. Va., largest single unit in the world (capacity, 90,000 tons using alcohol-butadiene). Experts hinted that the U.S. Rubber plant was more complete, had used no handwork or improvised machinery to inch over the finish line. In Washington, Rubber Deputy Bradley Dewey said both companies had done a "superb job," called the race a dead heat...
Apprentices Wanted. The uncut boules are shipped to U.S. jewelers to be split, sawed, cut, drilled, polished for use as bearings. This stage remains a serious bottleneck. Reason: jewel cutting in the U.S. involves more handwork than in Europe, where it is a highly mechanized art. So far the best apprentice jewel cutters have been nimble-fingered seamstresses. Grumbled a master jewel cutter last week: "We have been called upon to do a staggering job without having time to develop the machine methods it took the Swiss 100 years to develop...