Labor and Automation of Foundries

[Dwayne Henson]

     BS&R and Lodge both are often "slammed" by collectors for their clunky, thick walled, rough, automated molded skillets. Collectors call for a return to the "old days" when skillets were smooth, thin walled, hand molded, and then ground and polished.
     The main reasons given why these were no longer possible; competition from cheap imports, and cost. One aspect that hasn't been discussed is labor. See this letter, we may have to add labor, or the lack of it, to the list of reasons foundries embraced automation.

[Larry Pesek]

Interesting...  Thanks for posting...  I had some experience with sand molding in High School in the early 80s.. (Yes, we had a pretty nice set up, But like our Print shop, it was a dead trade. :()

[Claudia Killebrew]

That is a lot more recent than I thought it would be. Looks and sounds older than 1970.

[Dwayne Henson]

Only 46 years ago  :)

[Cheryl Watson]

Cross Post Discussion from WAGS Facebook Page:

[Jonathan Sutton]

Very interesting. I would argue, though, that cost and lack of labor are intrinsically related. Given the terrible working conditions and the relatively low selling price for cast iron cookware (average consumers tend to be very price sensitive, especially for mundane cookware), the foundries simply could not afford to pay workers enough to be willing to tolerate the working conditions. There was no shortage of labor in the post-war era. There was a shortage of *affordable* labor.

I suspect there was also a decrease in the demand for cast iron as newer, more user-friendly cookware came to market (e.g., Corningware pyroceram that has the same refrigerator to stove to oven abilities of cast iron and is also essentially nonstick but is dishwasher safe).

Lodge and BSR were smart enough to start to automate (which surely helped), but they also benefited from the consolidation in the industry. It's much easier to be a viable US manufacturer of cast iron when you have a monopoly on that market than when you have several competitors making comparable products. This is especially important if the overall market size of cast iron has decreased in real terms (as I believe it has) compared to other types of cookware.

[Cheryl Watson]

With BSR/ASW their primary product were STOVES and a few other sorts of things... cookware was a sideline... :)

[Dwayne Henson]

When talking about foundries shutting down, labor was something I had never considered. So that is why I posted this letter. This foundry, if they could have found molder's they would have stayed open,

In foundries molder's were well paid, see Hugh's comments above. The molder's were the highest paid on the foundry floor. Those molder's paid off houses, bought cars and put kids through college, that's better than many jobs out there today. :)

[Dwayne Henson]

Some additional information on labor and foundry work. It was a much larger problem than I imagined. Some back history, Alabama Manufacturing, (BS&R) when started leased convicts from the State of Alabama as workers. There is a long history of foundries being located in prisons and utilizing that "captive" work force. Foundries have a long history of labor strikes. In 1989 BS&R participated in the State Board of Corrections Work Release Program as they were having problems obtaining enough employees. Foundries have always had labor issues.

The most telling information on the impact of labor in the foundries was a memo I just found (Thank you Jones Family). This 1977 memo has, and I quote,  "it costs approximately $550 to a acquire a new employee and keep him six weeks here at the Stove Works." "Sally has just advised me that we have hired and fired over 125 people in the month of August alone. This represents out-of-pocket and lost opportunity cost of almost $69,000."

All I can say is WOW! That would make an impact on any business.