Conditions, Wages, and Hours
Ordinarily physical ability involving the use of both hands is required. The loss of one eye, or of a leg or foot, or of hearing is not a material detriment. Usually the men work standing at benches. The work is all indoors. The day is usually nine but sometimes eight hours. A helper may expect to receive from $10 to $18 per week, a journeyman from $18 to $24, and a foreman from $25 to $40 per week. Some shops are unionized, but most of them are not. This is often piecework on the premium system.
Training
The elements of these vocations are taught in some trade schools, but most of the individuals now following the work obtained their knowledge through actual experience in a factory. It requires several years of shop training to become thoroughly proficient. A man may start as a helper and gradually acquire the skill necessary to place himself in the journeyman class. He has always ahead of him the possibility of a foremanship.
PLAN No. 1076. ASSEMBLING
After all of the components of an electrical machine have been produced in the different departments of the factory, they are sent to an assembling department for arrangement into the finished product. The coils are usually in place in and connected on each separate component. But the different members must be bolted or otherwise fastened together as required. The rotating members—armatures or rotors—must be mounted in the bearings, and such electrical junctions made between them as may be necessary. Then the machine is made ready for operation and test.
Where the device is small and simple the work of assembling is correspondingly uncomplicated. It then involves little physical effort and may be done by young women. But where motors or generators, transformers, or similar equipment of capacities of from 5 horsepower up are to be handled, men are required for the work. The assembling department affords a good starting place in the factory for a man who has had some electrical experience. While much of the work requires no theoretical training, a man who already has, or who acquires through study, a knowledge of the theoretical elements involved, will be able to progress accordingly.
Qualifications, Training, and Expenses
Ordinary physical qualifications are necessary. Some lifting is required, although cranes are usually provided for handling heavy pieces. The work can be learned only in the shop, and often a man must have gained experience in the particular factory in which a certain device or line of devices is manufactured before he becomes proficient in their assembly. An individual without previous experience may start in as a helper. Later he may develop into a skilled assembler and may look forward to the position of foreman. In large factories there are many foremen in the assembling department. Each foreman has direction of the assembly of a certain type of apparatus.