The Biggest Job Begins

Your Government has decided on two broad policies. The first is...a seven-day week for every war industry. The second...rush additions to capacity by building more new plants, adding to old plants and using the many smaller plants....

Thus last week did President Roosevelt thumbnail the biggest industrial job ever tackled by the U.S. The "defense program" was over, to be replaced by full war production. It meant that the U.S. economy was to be turned on its ear. That vast, delicate, intermeshed mechanism has been producing about 15% war goods, 85% peacetime goods. To reach the President's goal, it will have to be put on a 50% war-50% peace basis.

Last week the first steps were taken. OPM ordered capacity production at once in five industries: planes, ships, anti-aircraft guns, ammunition, tanks. Many a citizen had assumed that even under the "defense" program, these and other war industries were already at capacity. Many a citizen was wrong.

Planes. The U.S. had planned to achieve an output of 543 heavy bombers a month by June 1943. Mr. Knudsen last week doubled this program to 1,000.

Before last week not a single U.S. aircraft plant was operating around the clock. Some, like New Jersey's Brewster Aeronautical (while shifting models) actually had been laying off hundreds of men. But OPM's order changed all that. California's Douglas Aircraft (two-and four-engined bombers) began changing from a five-to a six-day week. At Ypsilanti, Mich. Ford-men worked 24 hours daily (under big floodlights at night) to finish the biggest U.S. bomber plant (see cut). The first mass-produced four-engined bomber should roll out of Ypsilanti by spring, but handmade jobs from Ford's Dearborn plant are expected before Christmas.

Fighter planemakers quickly fell in line. Bell Aircraft, almost strike-shut a fortnight ago, announced it was going on a 24-hour day, seven days a week. Northrop did likewise. Curtiss-Wright boasted that its pursuit-plane output had hit a new record. Little Republic Aviation this week jumped to an around-the-clock basis v. two 50-hour shifts previously. United Aircraft reshuffled all its plans, announced that the $26,000,000 it will raise from a preferred stock sale (TIME, Dec. 8) will now go for wartime expansion, instead of post-war contraction.

Metals. Aircraft-parts makers and other metal fabricators have been held back by the metals shortage, especially copper. So the mines of Anaconda, Phelps-Dodge and Miami last week jumped from a sixto a seven-day week. (Kennecott has operated day in, day out for more than a year.) Production increases in the first three companies alone will add perhaps 50,000 tons annually to the U.S. copper supply, an amount equal to 5% of 1940's entire U.S. production.

But seven-day operations can mean different things. Anaconda miners now work six days but on overlapping shifts so that the mines are never idle. Phelps-Dodge had planned to put its miners on a straight seven-day week, but crashed head-on with the C.I.O. The Mine, Mill & Smelter Workers Union's complaint: a man's efficiency declines rapidly if he is overworked. The union's proposal: increase the force and use three full 40-hour shifts, then install air-conditioning for still more efficiency.

Most lead mines, although Bill Knudsen two months ago asked them to lift output (TIME, Nov. 17), are still on a five-day week--and their output is running at least 20% below 1926.

Steel. U.S. steelmakers alone can produce 85-88,000,000 tons annually v. an estimated 60,000,000 tons for all Axis mills. But 60% of this--the amount now going into war essentials--is still not enough. Last week a steel shortage was bearing down on the U.S. war program with fearful swiftness. Shortages in pig iron and steel scrap were the main reasons.

But additions to pig-iron capacity are 71 going up fast.* The scrap shortage (estimated at 10,000,000 tons for 1942) drove Lessing Rosenwald, OPM's Conservation Chief, to announce a house-to-house drive at week's end. The Steelmakers meanwhile began getting more steel into munitions by cancellation of civilian orders and rearranging mill schedules. More than that they cannot do because steelmaking is a seven-day continuous operation and they were already working near capacity.

Tanks, Guns and Engines. Most dramatic industrial reaction to the war was in dramatic Detroit. This week the automakers, who hold over $4 billions in defense orders, suddenly stopped every non-defense production line, told 300,000 autoworkers to stay home. The lines may reopen on Jan. 5 but, if so, only 180,000 men will be recalled because OPM's latest January passenger-car quotas allow only 25% of the January 1941 rate. And in February there may be no output at all.

Auto bigwigs will not be idle while the assembly lines are stilled. General Motors will put its present defense production on four full 40-hour shifts as soon as it reaches an agreement (expected soon) with U.A.W. concerning overtime rates for Saturday and Sunday work. In addition, its engineers this week will re-examine the dead assembly lines for possible conversion to war work. Six months ago such conversion was not thought possible.

Though they handled it as a sideline, the automakers had already done a Detroit-worthy job of defense production. G.M.'s Allison-engine division last week reached its original goal of 1,000 engines monthly; the Fisher Body division proudly flew the Navy's "E" (for excellence) pennant for its naval gun housings. G.M.'s arms output was officially set at 24% of all G.M. output in the September quarter. Soon it may reach 50-60%; next year it may be 90%.

Ford, still honeymooning with the U.A.W., asked its men to work a seven-day week until additional men could be trained. It got "unanimous response." OPM announced this week that U.S. tank makers (Chrysler, American Locomotive, American Car & Foundry) were speeding up so fast they would hit 2,800 units monthly within a year. Current rate: 840. Meanwhile, Timken Roller Bearing (busy on Navy and tank gun mounts) told how it had planned full-time production 20 months ago. Timken's "anti-blackout" schedule uses three full eight-hour shifts, a fourth swing shift to keep equipment running 160 hours weekly, leaving eight hours a week for maintenance.

Ships. Most shipbuilders had been working five and six days a week. Five days after the Japs bombed Pearl Harbor the Navy ordered all Naval shipbuilders on a full-time basis. This means maximum use of full shifts and overtime work, and a 20 to 40% boost in production. The Navy now expects that most of its two-ocean Fleet will be in the water by Christmas 1944--two years ahead of schedule.

In all these production increases there was one big hitch: how long could it last? How long before shortage materials became no materials, before 40-hour week men cracked under 60-70 hour weeks, before machines pounding 160 hours weekly almost fall apart? As maintenance declines, as overtime mounts, as skilled labor and management are spread thin, as general-purpose tools are used for special-purpose tasks, and as subcontracting brings in more & more small, marginal and obsolete factories, it is likely that U.S. industrial efficiency will decline. But it is certain that output will soar to levels which, a year ago, would have been considered astronomical.

* On grimy Zug Island in the Detroit River last week a new National Steel blast furnace was blown in less than six months after construction work began (usual time: 12-18 months). It is 105 ft. high, will produce 450,000 tons of pig iron annually, is thus even bigger than the new Bethlehem furnace ("world's biggest") blown in at Lackawanna last month.

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