Trouble in Akron

Akron was falling down on its war job. The town last week had become a No. 1 trouble spot in the U.S. Grimy, rubber-smelling Akron is counted on to produce two-thirds of all the heavy tires needed for military guns and supply trucks and for half of all the U.S. heavy-duty tires. But Akron failed by 30% to meet its heavy-tire quotas in July and seems to be falling further behind. Result:

P: OPA canceled all outstanding ration certificates, issued prior to July 15, for bus and truck tires.

P: The Office of Defense Transportation solemnly warned that thousands of trucks will soon be forced off the highways.

P: A trucking association curtly summed up the tire situation: "It stinks."

P: The Army, foreseeing a shortage of 80,000 heavy tires, talked nervously of cutting back the already-reduced truck program of 600,000 trucks for 1944.

In this latest rubber crisis, WPB appealed for an immediate increase in tire production--a full 30%, now when the need is greatest. Could Akron meet it?

The Quota. The problem was compounded of small ifs, manpower, absenteeism and faulty scheduling. But the real answer lay in labor-management history. Could Akron finally end its labor-management feud? Three years of world war had failed to end it.

The feud was born in the years of bitter, even bloody fighting between the C.I.O. Rubber Workers union and rubber's Big Four of Akron (Goodyear, Goodrich, General and Firestone). Akron was saddled with a six-hour day, which management started during the depression, and which the rubber workers grimly held to thereafter. Not till January of this year did the last group of Akron's tire workers agree to work eight hours, even for war. The whole tire industry's 45.5 hour week is under the national war industry average (46.8).

The real production stranglehold is the "quota." The quota started as a scheme to beat the hated production speed-up which workers suspect in Akron's piecework system. In the past, faster work often meant that the company would cut the payrate per piece. Thus, to make certain they do not work harder for less money, workers in many departments set their own quotas. This has been brought to such scientific control that many pieceworkers collect the same amount in their paychecks--down to the last cent. For long, companies approved the quota--it kept skilled employes from burning themselves out in overwork. Publicly union bigwigs deplore the quota; privately, workers rigidly enforce it. Two months ago, eight rubber workers began serving jail sentences in Akron for beating a fellow unionist who had exceeded his quota.

The Big Bite. In the face of this situation Akron does not chew as much war work as it has bitten off. As tire-making slacked when rubber got scarce, the Big Four grabbed orders for rubber rafts, gas tanks, ammunition, etc. Goodyear even set up its own aircraft unit, now employs 24,000 turning out Corsair fighters and plane parts. This was good business as long as the synthetic rubber program floundered. But now synthetic is pouring in, and Akron is trying to turn out more heavy tires than ever before.

The Navy did not help matters when it canceled the Corsair contract of inefficient Brewster Aeronautical Corp. (TIME, May 29), shifted the load to Goodyear. Moreover synthetic rubber takes some 25% more time and labor to process, and big tires are time-eaters. (Example: 60 small tires can be turned out as quickly as one huge bomber tire.)

In Draft, Out Draft. The War Manpower Commission estimates Akron needs only 1,400 more tire workers. (The company estimate: 2,700.) This week WMC began to comb the South for men. The Army & Navy, which, despite warnings, drafted into the services thousands of tire workers, last week frantically began to release them. But all this took too much time. The need is now.

WPB's best bet to boost production is to crack the quota. Optimistically, it hopes to get unionists to agree to produce as much as possible for three months--with the rates frozen, so that the companies cannot use the wide-open production as a weapon to cut rates later. But WPB Vice Chairman L. R. Boulware got ready to go to Akron, the New York Times whacked the union in a series of articles, trumpeted of a WPB "investigation." Hastily WPB's Boulware canceled his trip to give the unionists time to calm down.

The only man who could probably get equally quick action for all of Akron's 80,000 workers was the tough, black-haired boss of the union, Sherman Dalrymple. But he was unavailable; he was on his way to Normandy to talk to frontline soldiers--to find out what Akron could do to further the war.

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