Specialization has operated to lower standards of skill and keep down wages. The average wage of the "all-round" machinist is very nearly the lowest found among the skilled trades. The union scale is but 14 cents an hour above that paid unskilled labor, while the average earnings of machine operators range from four to 12 cents above laborers' wages. Only among the highly skilled tool makers do the wages approach those received by skilled labor in most other industries. Table 19 shows the average, highest, and lowest rates per hour for all branches of the machine trades in the establishments from which data were collected during the survey, with the per cent employed on piece work and day work.
TABLE 19.—AVERAGE, HIGHEST, AND LOWEST EARNINGS, IN CENTS PER HOUR,
AND PER CENT EMPLOYED ON PIECE WORK AND DAY WORK, 1915[TableList]
| Workers | Lowest | Average | Highest | Per cent on piece work | Per cent on day work |
| Tool makers Machinists Planer hands Grinding machine operators Bench hands Screw machine operators Lathe hands Turret lathe operators Gear cutter operators Milling machine operators Drill press operators Machinists' helpers | 25.0 25.0 20.0 20.0 17.5 17.5 19.0 25.0 20.0 15.0 15.0 20.0 | 39.0 33.2 32.2 32.0 29.6 29.5 29.1 29.0 26.7 25.9 23.5 22.2 | 50.0 50.0 42.0 50.0 45.0 63.8 40.0 47.5 40.0 40.0 35.0 25.0 | ... ... ... 70 48 79 40 80 96 53 35 ... | 100 100 100 30 52 21 60 20 4 47 65 100 |
On the basis of weekly or yearly earnings, the trade makes a better showing. Work is steady throughout the year, and the time lost through unemployment on account of seasonal changes is slight. Also, as the usual working day is from nine to 10 hours, that is, from one to two hours longer than in the higher paid building trades, the difference in daily wages is really less marked than a comparison of hourly rates would seem to indicate.
Little attempt has been made to adapt the apprentice system to modern conditions. The term of service and rates of pay have changed but slightly over a long period of years. As a result only a small proportion of the boys who begin as apprentices finish the apprenticeship term of three or four years. Employers attribute this to the relatively high wages paid for machine operating, and the slight advantage, from a wage standpoint, of the "all-round" man over the machine operator. After a year or two the apprentice finds that he can double his pay by taking a job as operator, and the inducement for learning the trade thoroughly is too small to hold him. The report gives a comparison of the earnings of an apprentice and a machine operator, both starting at the same age, the first becoming a journeyman machinist at the end of three years and the second specializing on a particular machine. Assuming that both boys go to work at the age of 16 their total earnings up to the age of 25 years will be approximately equal. The lack of thoroughly trained workmen is beginning to be felt, but the efforts made by industrial establishments to meet it have small prospects of success unless the economic factors of the problem are given greater consideration.
Inasmuch as no regular apprenticeship period is served for machine operating, a special effort was made to secure data relating to the time usually required for the worker to learn the operation of each tool well enough to earn average wages. In this matter the individual opinions of foremen and superintendents differed widely, but when the reports from all the establishments visited were compared, a sufficient degree of uniformity was found to serve as a basis for estimating the amount of experience workers of average intelligence would need, under normal shop conditions, in order to become fairly proficient.
There was practical unanimity in fixing the period at four years for tool makers and three to four years for machinists. Higher estimates were received from the superintendents of plants doing a jobbing business or manufacturing high grade machine tools than from the specialized shops making a single product. The superintendents of automobile manufacturing plants, where the standard of quality in production is necessarily high, gave the lowest estimates of all. Table 20 shows the estimated time required to learn the various types of machine work.