C. B. Burnett's Notes on the J-M Industrial Relations Conference on Job Evaluation and Production Standards (1952)

Thirteen pages of notes dated October 31, 1952, by C. B. Burnett on a Johns-Manville Industrial Relations Conference held October 16 and 17, 1952, at the Hotel Moraine in Highland Park, Illinois. The topic was how to install and change job evaluation and production standards "to assure employee acceptance," and the notes list which J-M plants used which pay plans. Among examples of changes that require new standards is a change in working conditions: "Fibre is packed in 100# paper instead of jute bags," with the result that a "10% allowance in shipping and receiving standards for use of respirator because of dust is eliminated."

What it shows

The notes are mostly about wage-setting procedure. The bag example shows that some J-M shipping and receiving jobs had carried a time allowance in their production standards for wearing a respirator because of fiber dust, and that management expected to remove it once fiber came in paper bags. It is offered as a sample case in a table, not as a report on a particular plant.

In Johns-Manville's chronology

Johns-Manville's own chronology of what the company knew describes this document as follows:

At Industrial Relations Managers' Conference held 10/16/52, C.B. Burnett discussed change from burlap to paper bags for fiber which eliminated need for hazard factor in pay rates.

Editor's note: J-M's description says the change from burlap to paper bags removed the need for a hazard factor in pay rates. The notes speak of jute bags and of a 10% allowance in production time standards for respirator use, given as a hypothetical example.