erate a single machine tool or perform a
single operation made up of relatively simple elements. From one-half
to two-thirds of the working force is recruited from immigrant labor
which is "broken in" under skilful foremen within a period varying
from a few days to a few weeks. In the simpler assembling operations
the jobs are so subdivided that any man who is not actually
feebleminded can learn the work in a few days. Production is on a
large scale, permitting the maintenance of high-grade engineering and
experimental departments, where all of the work is planned to the last
detail. As a result the automobile manufacturers are turning out one
of the most complicated and most efficient machines known to modern
industry with a working force composed chiefly of semi-skilled labor.

For the machine shop workers the training suggested is similar to that
recommended for the same class of workmen in other machine shops. The
necessity of short unit courses adapted for teaching parts of the
trade rather than the whole trade is obvious, as most automobile
workers are employed on specialized operations. Short unit evening
courses for motor and transmission assemblers, and testers and
inspectors, are recommended.

STEEL WORKS, ROLLING MILLS, AND RELATED INDUSTRIES

A somewhat similar treatment is followed with respect to the iron and
steel group of industries--blast furnaces, steel mills, rolling mills,
wire mills, nail mills, and bolt, nut, and rivet factories. These
industries are characterized by a high proportion of common and
semi-skilled labor in the working force. Between 75 and 90 per cent of
the workers are of foreign birth. In the operating department of one
mill only two Americans were found among a total of 600 employees. As
a rule the native born workers are mechanics employed in the power and
maintenance departments.

With scarcely an exception the occupations are of a nature that
require the worker to learn through actual experience in the mills.
Theory and practice must be learned at the same time. Even the
supervisory and executive positions in which a technical education is
of considerable value require a long and arduous apprenticeship on the
job before the worker can compete with men who have started with the
scantiest educational equipment, but have picked up a knowledge of the
processes by experience and observation. Below these positions the
work rapidly grades off to various kinds of machine operating