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Topic No. 4

SUBSIDIZED SHOPS

SURVEY BY E. P. MORFORD, Superintendent
Brooklyn Industrial Home for the Blind, Brooklyn, N. Y.

INDUSTRIAL HOME FOR THE BLIND
512 Gates Avenue, Brooklyn, N. Y.

January, 1917.

SIR FREDERICK FRASER.

DEAR SIR:

In compliance with your request to act as a member of a Commission to make a survey of the work as accomplished by the Massachusetts Commission for the Blind during the past ten years, I beg to submit the following report on the subject matter assigned to me.

SUBSIDIZED SHOPS

I have spent several days in Massachusetts and have personally inspected the various shops that are being conducted by the Commission, and have interviewed the members of the shop staff and talked with the blind workers.

The practical systematic handling of the problems by the Commission is highly commendable, and I feel that friendly criticism and helpful suggestions are all that are necessary.

It is a basic fact that blind manual labor due to existing conditions in the industrial world must be subsidized if the intent is to make the individual a self-supporting wage earner.

The problem is, to what extent is it needed to realize the handicap of blindness, and how shall it be administered for the betterment of the individual?

The policy of the Commission is to furnish the raw material, provide the shop, supply the supervision and instruction, market the product, and pay the blind worker the full selling price less the cost of material only. Is this policy sound? Is it good business? Is it elevating the blind worker as a social unit?

The two methods of administering this subsidy adopted by the Com-mission, namely, a flat-rate wage and a sliding-scale wage, are both commendable, but do their faults outweigh their virtues?

A flat-rate wage discriminates against the rapid worker and places a premium on the slow worker. It reduces the earning capacity of floor space, of machinery, tools, etc.

A sliding-scale wage known as augmentation of wages affords opportunity for both rapid and slow workers to realize to their capacity the result of their labor, but with a decreasing ratio of increase up to a certain amount. The decreasing ratio of increase discriminates against the rapid worker in favor of the slow worker. It pays the worker up to this amount more than the selling price less the coat of material. It is a cumbersome method and entails considerable clerical work.

A simple piece-work scale based on similar scales used by manufacturers of similar products, and sufficiently padded to make up for the handicap of blindness, would be much more efficient. For example, note the Perkins Shop, Boston, Mass., or Industrial Home for the Blind Brooklyn, N. Y.

The method of handling the products in all the shops cannot be much improved, considering conditions, buildings, locations, etc. The labor-saving machinery and other devices that have been introduced, and the smoothness with which the various operations fit into each other, very materially increase the efficiency by eliminating laborious work and improving the quality of the output, but the quantity of the output is below normal.

The blind workers as a group are contented and in harmony with the administration. They realize the advantages they are receiving and are appreciative, but there is evidence of an undercurrent of restlessness to outside influences.

The staff is well organized and quite efficient. The spirit of cooperation and harmony is very apparent and, above all, the enthusiasm shown by the staff members makes itself felt at every turn.

The means of industrial training are somewhat limited, due to the fact that the untrained workers must be admitted as apprentices and fitted into the shop system to the best possible advantage of all.

To a limited extent this plan will provide industrial training, but it frequently necessitates the transferring of regular employees from work with which they are familiar to that with which they are not familiar.

Such changes are not relished by the regular worker, and tend to disturb the equilibrium and tranquillity -sic- of the shop.

In the shops outside of Boston these conditions do not prevail; at least, not to the same extent, and these shops might be utilized as feeders to the Cambridge Shops.

A non-residential trade training shop especially for men would effectively solve this problem. All applicants for industrial training could be thoroughly tried out and trained accordingly.

Questions of mental and physical ability and of inclination or disinclination to work, etc., could be solved.

A residential center for trade training or employment is not desirable, because it would in due time become a retreat or blind hotel of defective blind. The environment would prove a serious obstacle in the pathway of newly blinded people seeking training or employment.

Conditions of regular employment are good. There seems to be abundant work, and orders are booked far in advance.