Urban frontier; The machine people

What does it mean to work in the city. How is it different. Why. Why do we ask of the worker that has never been asked before. What have we given him. What have we taken away. What's it like to make pumps in Pittsburgh or buckles and Flatbush to make tires in Akron to make change in Seattle to float a battleship in Philadelphia or alone in Manhattan. What's it mean to work in the city. What do we ask of the worker that has never been asked before. What have we given him. What have we taken away. Were. The National Association of educational broadcasters resents the machine people. An examination of the role of the worker in the modern American city. One in a series of programs titled The Urban Frontier produced by the Community Education Project at San Bernardino Valley College under a grant from the National Association of educational broadcasters. These programs were developed in consultation with faculty members at the University of California at Riverside University of Redlands and a Valley College as well as a core of professional civic and business leaders of the

San Bernardino Riverside metropolitan area. Each program is designed to raise some of the issues facing the individual who lives in or near the city and how the machine people. I look at some of the problems and opportunities of the worker. The city is always a place of work. It's the job. The things you do with the money they give you three squares and a beer or two Cadillacs and a maid. Depends on your job depends on your city. Meet Edward Lawrence Miller a man on the way to his job as perhaps you were this morning. Eddie is an American he works in a big city. These facts alone give his work in his life as a worker a rhythm a pattern that is both new and strange on this earth. Now Mangano I know. I'm an ugly fellow let's do it don't you know it took you long enough to make up your mind for Eddie. From home to job is a matter of 38 minutes a little longer when the

freeway gets jammed. But already he's been moving toward his rendezvous with work for some 90 minutes alarm clock raising coffee car keys five days a week. The morning ritual is the same. Around him in other apartments in houses now on the streets and beneath them other thousands are on the way to their jobs. Some of them are important to Eddy but most of them are not. OK OK go ahead cut and if you want to. No manners over a couple of bent fenders. The last time you tried it on Jack. This gets worse every day. This is also part of the job that the rush of the race hustle and hurry getting to and from your place of work. If he makes the trip in an automobile one that he owns or will only eventually himself. And this too serves to set him apart from other workers the world around his labor produces more wealth and he gets a bigger share of it and with his share he buys things and some

time to enjoy the day there's a good race station wagon with a boat on top. Yes they're pretty good thing. Got the boat just at that with the station wagon under it. What a deal I would make for vacations. Janie the kids boy they'd really love it. I've got to get a washing machine first. Wonder what kind she wants. Washing machine toaster iron and dryer mixer vacuum will I ever get that girl equipped Eddie Miller's job and the hundreds of thousands of other jobs like it that have produced more things more goods and services and made them available to more people than ever before. And there's also always unique on this earth. Elsewhere it simply doesn't happen this way in Italy. Good luck to work in France. He'd ride a bicycle when he'd finally save enough to buy one in Britain eddied on the bike but he'd probably take a bus or a train bicycle tires cost money but a car of his own on his job nowhere else in the world would

he be able to buy one to only eventually himself. Seven more payments and you have mine all mine. Yeah maybe I'll trade in should be good bait a good down payment on a station wagon. Yep gonna get me one of those at the mill or by his work with his pay commands more and more goods more services with each passing year. And this is no accident. It's part of a system mass production. The widest possible distribution and its goal. Abundance for the mini instead of the few. But here's eddy at his place of work. His official day is about to begin. Fire Tommy Howard Harry Harry. Harry George what happened to you. Nothing the happy boy I just get up hard slap you for coffee. Better not catch me at the break. Yeah time for the clanger. And now for Eddie Miller the official day begins.

This is subassembly station 26 it is making hydraulic pumps except that he is and really. Is his one coated contribution among thirty eight others. And where he sits he neither knows for certain or cares for long what has gone before. Dark any you know with any direct personal knowledge of what will come later. This is what he did. Gaskins JM 31. Getting held 55. Holds A. 9. And 10. Gasket JM 31 getting healthy this is part of the system brought on by a hasty wedding of man to machine. Each worker each man and woman completely predictable for each a single specific task done in a specified way in as short a time as possible. Each operation each contribution analyze organize to mesh with the others that go on around as little areas that is left to chance on station 26. The light

shines on Eddie's workbench precision fit to the work he does. The stool he sits on the new ones with adjustable foot rest. The small tools he uses perfected after two years of trial error in comparison. A concerned and troubled executive searches out a way to meet Eddie's needs as he sits on 26. One result a company Billiton goes home to his wife as precise a tool of employee morale as three psychologists five personnel consultants and an ex newspaper man can make it in all things. Eddy Miller as a worker and as a human being is now the rational logical systematic concern of experts and anyone. Getting 55. Today. 9. And 10. At the miller was no concern of experts not only is his work systematized but also his working identity. This too is a

thing of numbers and letters. Here is Eddie Miller as he looks to production control with a dash 26 of assembly plant model 51 a flowchart 31 8 0 6 unit speed a median 236 reject point five minus percent. Here's another expert view of Eddie Miller. After two or maybe three live score 77 profiles the plus point seven to one your correlation point a plus for your point 870 elsewhere he's thought of in these times. Miller Edward. SS by three when Dash 3:26 128 How can a three dashed three dashed seven dash dash to the iOS 3 11. See you a dash three for a dash 5 Dash 1 116 51. No E.L. choice except to dash 17 altie three days twenty five point five A six Dash 80 les d ss and check off Miller Eddie L. areas three four five and seven Clarence Abel

file MC dice 8 5 1 subassembly 8 26 date for man Edward Lawrence blood group B Rh positive Protestant no affiliation my 13 54 Elmer's dash 3 8 5 0 2 file 31 25 100 and 3 people read Eddie Miller's name. It's part of their job. Some of them read it every day. Some of them think about it. This too is part of the system. But. Let's return to Eddie as he sits on station in 26. What does he bring to his job. And what does he take away. Other men in other centuries have done routine jobs. How did they feel. And what does it all mean. Any job anywhere. Any time. What does Eddie's job meeting at. 86 city. In the world. It would be better. 86 87 my guys don't make that.

I can make. That maybe the union can get us from Georgia as. Myers says they can no more do I. Want more money. Gotta get a better job. At his job. Means money. And most of the things he wants are tied up late or soon with money. Not money for money's sake but money for the sake of the things that money can buy for him and his family. Sometimes it's money to guarantee security which means money to prevent the lack of money. Now and then it may be money to buy time time to enjoy the things they say money can't buy. Yet. His share of the wealth that his labor produces his pay. This is only one of the rewards that is Eddie Miller's to take home with him. It's a good outfit I guess. I might as well wait for a. Chance to get somewhere. Good bunch. Glad I don't have to pay for that form of. Play. He's. Got a good crew here. A real boy. And then too everybody looks

out for everybody. Sometimes they do. But. They're. Not going to keep Bette Middler turning books always. Got an advantage. I liked it. I really liked it. Funny. AS. We learned early to be useful. It is mother and father taught it to him first. We learn to be useful and. We're taught to respect work by doing it. Or at least by being exposed to our share of the work to be done. We Americans give over much of ourselves to work and to success in working. We say that work is a good thing. Work we say has a value in itself. And to be industrious to work hard at any legal test. This we say is to be found worthy and is a guarantee of success. It is not our purpose to quarrel with this proposition but merely to examine it and to do so outside of our century away from our systems and our assembly lines. How would any Look at his job in other times in other cities. As an

American he looks at his job and himself one way. But here's the way it would have been for Eddie if he'd lived and worked in the great city of New School 500 years ago when it was the capital of the mighty Inca empire that ruled in the high places of the Andes and pushed out its power and ideas to rule the plains below. Labor for the Inca is one of the most sacred duties of all. From the highest to the lowest. No man is exempt. Each man at his job seeks always to serve his community his clan but. More important. Much more. He serves his God. Oddly enough. As a citizen of the Inca empire as a workman for the south by INCA. Eddie Miller would never have been paid in money. The Inca never used it. On the other hand say that Eddie Miller had lived in the time of greatness for the city of Athens five centuries before our calendar begins to reckon time.

As a citizen as he would have had this to say we're thinking it's not all that work is for slaves labor and commerce are not and should never be the concerns of free men. They point to mine and in time they will destroy the soul. Had already been a citizen of Rome some seven centuries later. He probably would have felt this way now for a Roman citizen or not. Work is all very well in its place. I suppose everyone should do a little work now and then. If you have nothing more important to the dental it's a reasonably decent way to start off the day. But give over your life to working or working at anything. This is ridiculous. But. Eddie Miller today is an American. 20th century. He's one of the machine people and he looks at his job and himself with a peculiarly American and definitely 20th century frame of reference. Get me a better job. Can't tell your kids your twisted bolts audio life. Same boat same job same outfit. I get a promotion now and then sit on your

stool and die. Harry. Now that's that guy. He made it. Doesn't make any more money. Not much more anyway but. But he's got an office he wears a suit a special sticker on his car gets to park right by the gate hob nobs with them all the way to get up there. Eddie Miller looks at work in general and his work in particular in terms of a letter to the client. Some people are above him. Some people are below him. And build into the Eddie Miller is the desire to ply. Money. That's part of it but. Not. All. They come on leave it in a way they will in a minute. I want some coffee. Yeah I hear you put in for that front office job. Yeah. Yes I did. I've been studying nights too. So what. Nothing. Just thought I'd ask. You know as long as you're here in the shop it's part of my job to look after you. Let's go up to the front machine. You know there may be something I can do for you. Even a

stewardess a little drag here and there were we gone gone up to the front machine up with that front office crowded a bunch of smart alecs there all right college boys with a real snotty Dame sitting around doing nothing if you ask me the real people are down on the line. There's your coffee. He like things hot. Thanks. As I was saying the real people are down on the line I heard George. So did everybody else soul saw as they say in the lead sheet we're all part of the team jerks on my team yard. You disappoint me. That's bad. You're a snob a tool I am. That's right. Let me tell you something the people on my team are down with the rest of us and we're a solid C between the years were solid. Don't get me wrong. If you want a job up here with a soft boiled executive class I'll try to help you make the switch. George I do want that job just like Harry. He made it. I can too. Maybe you can maybe you can ask to see Harry says it will do me a

favor when you just don't mention him again. Three months with the college boys and he's turned into a real company pusher. And what's it getting He gets to wear a suit he gets to wear a tie works as well he gets to wear a suit you know what I'll wear mine on Saturday night. Hey there he is now Harry. Harry. Harry. That's funny. You know I thought he was looking right this way. He saw you. Yes I'm so proud you know. You know it's about it's crowded this end of the planet full of guys like him. Come on he's all right. So what's it getting. Well he gets a lot of privileges responsibility you know he's on the way out right now is out of my league now. That's the way it goes I guess. I think you're nuts for one job with these jerks. Maybe I am they don't make a lot more. Some of them don't make as much money isn't everything and I know but that's what the payoff is whether you know it or not that's what it's always going to be. Maybe you still want that spot in the department office. Sure sure I do.

I'll put in a word. The guy up there owes me a favor in fact a couple of them. George. You know I've been working hard for that right. Sure sure well I'll give you a leg up. Matter of fact when we start rolling again I'll mosey on up there and talk to George. You're solid. Yeah right between the ears. I'm. Eddie Miller looks at his work and his world in terms of the lattice of the slide. From his position on the ladder he sees and is seen by those around him. His job gives him an identity. It's a label he applies to himself when he tries to change from time to time. And this is another of the things he takes home from the plant is status. The knowledge of his place on the ladder. This is the substitution of what a man does or what he is getting you know 55 years. Old State. 9. And 10. Gasket JM 31.

Through 80 hours. Eddie does the same job in the same way. In the same way. And his work ranks among others. But more than a single status the right to occupy one rung on the ladder is he works on a 26. Eddie Miller develops off the job status as well. When he sits in a union meeting where he lists his occupation and place of employment on a credit application. Or simply in conversation with another city where I work over a boiler that's a big. Hit. I figure you've got a better chance there might as well work for a big one it never freezes over you know you always got a chance to bump to go somewhere. If Eddie Miller is to feel significant. If he has to like the layers of the job he puts on one he has constantly before the need to come to terms with the other. Surround him on the job. He can become important to those who work near him he has a union a formal association of people who work for the same firm he does

or he can choose to identify with the front office people. Those who wear or touch the mantle of the boss do in Eddie's case is both unknown and unknowable as he sits on station 26. But in either case it becomes important. Not just for what he does at the moment but the gaskets the fittings the boat she puts in place. Yes but for what he is another human intelligent curious and creative. One good idea is to put a coffee machine in every department I told. I've got a lot of them a lot of good ideas for years on the line Mr Saunders and you'll learn you'll learn what production. You know what work is and you know what it means to those go out there you can talk their own languages and that means a lot right. Yes sir Mr Sun. As I told you you know what work means. It was not always this way. In other times when work was organized differently at the mill I might not have

had the problem of creating for himself a sense of worth and significance. For work itself. The actual making of things for others to use. This in itself could be reassuring. The barrel maker in Elizabeth and London the shoemaker in Old Amsterdam the silversmith in the Philadelphia of Benjamin Franklin a craftsman no matter what his century or his city. He had two joys that in some measure the machine and the system have destroyed for the worker of today that Craftsman could find a deep and human satisfaction in the mastery of the materials themselves. He made a personal product and he personally controlled it in the marketplace for example. In another age Eddy Miller might have been this kind of worker if he had lived and worked in the city of Florence under the medicine he might very well have been a glass blower a little more narrow Nicole Scott and I'm not. Not too much now. You must be actually just right. What could we do with your

worthless sand. Little salt. You know any forking of. The bronze with iron even gold or silver. But they take so much issue. A man with a miracle in his runs to make something from nothing. Yet stick with me and I'll make a glass blower out of. Something. From nothing because. It takes a man to do that. That's just right just as. The craftsman made a personal product. He knew the pleasure of individually selecting shaping and mastering his methods and his materials. Then to the thing he made he controlled as it went to its ultimate user. Look my friend you're not just buying any fixture for your candles. You've come here for something unique something special. That's what I've made for you and that's what you'll pay for. I don't know where else and Florence can you buy this kind of glass this nicely handled. Let's have a little more respect and the price you offer. I'm willing to bargain Yes but let's not be insulting about it I don't have time to work for fools or for someone who

can't recognize a good thing when he sees it. Now now what would you offer this time. Take your time. Think what these days the satisfaction of personally creating a useful thing. The making of a personal product and then controlling it in the marketplace setting the price in an exchange of bargaining better extracting if you please a token of the buyers respect for the thing you had made. Then too when the worker made a personal product he was known for it to the other people in his city. He was known by the products he made known and respected. If he deserved their respect. And he the glass maker sure know it. These I know of you. Are a great man and a genius with glass. There is no other like him. Literally impossible to read. Then he's got a right to be or is not going to happen. And he knows it. Everybody likes to be a little impossible now and then even in Florence.

Today. However Eddie Miller is part of a system isolated both in time and space as he works at his mass production machine age job as gasket follows gasket as the fittings and the bolts are put in place. His is one unrecorded contribution in an objective process that makes him personal things for unknown people. Somewhere sometime your life may depend on the fact that Eddy Miller does his job well but you will never know it. And what's more important neither will he. We pay a price for the abundance of system in the machine and given us. Exactly how much it is we don't know. It's a human cost and it's paid by the added Miller paid by the men and women finishing the work in our cities when interest. Pass for other unknown people and no longer is the assembly line found only in the factories.

Eddy Miller may serve you in a bank a department store or a school and they sell you insurance for a casket. You may repair your car your glasses your stomach. The system works with people just as well as things on the assembly line accommodates services and ideas as well. The vast impersonal for sites system in the shooting are designed to do more and more and do it better every day. We have made them produce the abundance that Eddie Miller enjoys as an American that he is better fed better hours better clothed better served and better equipped with things and ideas than at any other age in the history of man. And in the years ahead. And he'll have more time off more time with his family more time with his friends. More time for himself after his work is done. He'll be better paid and is have more real wealth as well. I dish and all machines will take over more and more of the routine work of the 46. Possibly someday a machine may do it all. And of course he can work at other jobs. The city offers a vast variety of

separate from the individual. Yes Eddie and his children will always work with the system with the machine. So what is it that we ask of the Eddie Millers of the men and the women who come to work in the city. What have we given them. And what have we taken away. Getting old 55. State. 9. And 10. Gasket JM 31. Fitting the old 55 year. Old State. I. Guess could be one thing. You have been listening to the machine people. An examination of the role of the worker in the modern American metropolis. Here to comment on some of the problems and opportunities of the

worker is one of the consultants while the machine table Dr. Edward Roden director of the California State Mental hygiene clinic at Riverside. Doctor wrote the machine people of modern industrialized America may respond to many code names and may be depicted by many punch card patterns. But as yet these people are not driven by fears or inspired by push buttons. Eddie Miller's spiritual emotional and intellectual heritage has not been ground down and polished to frictionless smoothness. Instead millions of Eddie Miller's bring to their work personal needs which in one way or another they will try to satisfy. Why do you suppose for instance that Rosie was not happy just to read it but had to drop a coil and signed note into the cockpit of the plane on which she was

working. Rosie was probably financially secure. She was fulfilling moral and patriotic responsibilities. She may even have been amply praised by her foreman for her speed and efficiency. But. She dropped a personal message into the product she was working on. What seemed most lacking in her job was recognition of her as an individual recognition of someone creating a unique and personal product rivets are rivets. Anonymous until accompanied by a note in her social life in her family in her community she may or may not have succeeded in her striving for individual recognition. But you can be sure that she tried in her work. Her striving for recognition took a quaint form machine people that we are we continue to have feelings and ideas

the means by which we express these feelings and ideas are not gone by reason of mechanization they are only altered. Thank you Dr Rutan. This has been one to transcribe series of programmes titled The Urban Frontier produced by the Community Education Project at San Bernardino Valley College. These programs were developed in consultation with faculty members of the University of California at Riverside. The University of Redlands out of San Bernardino Valley College as well as a core of professional business and civic leaders of the San Bernardino Riverside metropolitan area. This is the NOAA AB Radio Network.