GENERAL FARM PROGRAM 843 



The table below gives a quick summary of IHC increasing prosperity: 



Item 



Total assets 



Net working capital. 



Gross property 



Depreciation reserve 

 Surplus and reserve . 

 Net worth 



671,800,000 

 241,500,000 

 382,912,000 

 137, 526, 000 

 141,601,000 

 541, 701, 000 



1947 



$620, 100, 000 

 233, 300, 000 

 330,231.000 

 124, 044, 000 

 113,077,000 

 513,177,000 



1946 



$559,961,000 

 270, 005, 000 

 276, 617, 000 

 120,049,000 

 154, 737, 000 

 491, 151, 000 



$558,715,000 

 317, 752, 000 

 224,044,000 

 116,822,000 

 150,864.000 

 487, 278, 000 



1939 



.$427, 915, 000 

 218.082,000 

 207, 582, 000 

 98, 569, 000 

 140,917,000 

 392, 418, 000 



Note in particular the millions — 137}^ million dollars to be exact — which IHC 

 has set aside to pension off overage machines. Human workers should receive 

 at least as much consideration as the machinery they use. 



Since 1945, IHC has spent $184,000,000 in its vast expansion and modernization 

 program (reflected in the gross property figures in the above table). With an 

 estimated $55,000,000 to be spent in 1949, the company will have invested 

 $239,000,000 for new, more efficient equipment. This is in addition to 47.8 

 million dollars in new facilities operated by Harvester during the war. 



Like the war facilities, the postwar expansion has been publicly financed. 

 This time not by tax dollars (as during the war) nor bj^ bank loans or new stock 

 (as is the usual practice) — but out of the corporation's huge profits. Harvester 

 workers and Harvester customers paid for the new buildings and equipmelit be- 

 cause IHC piled up astronomical profits rather than lowering prices and increasing 

 wages. 



So long as the boom in farm machines lasts, modern facilities will guarantee 

 ever greater profit for the company. But these acres of new equipment can stand 

 empty and idle if the Harvester monopoly continues to pursue the same policy of 

 maintaining high prices and laying off its workers that it followed in the last 

 depression. Already the increasing efficiencies of these new plants are resulting 

 in laj'-offs. Unless wages are sharply raised to augment buying power (and IHC 

 prices cut) IHC workers may find the new plants they paid for responsible for 

 throwing them out on the street. 



This is decidedly' different from the companj^'s claim that profits are put to 

 work for the benefit of customers and employees. Can we judge from past ex- 

 perience that the worker in a Harvester plant and the farmer who buys a tractor 

 really get a better break because of these mountainous profits? Let's take a 

 look at both: 



THE WORKER 



At the same time that IHC went on its postwar profit spree, it forced the union 

 to fight for every wage increase that was won. Any demand by the union that 

 profits be put to work to raise workers' living standards was bitterly resisted by 

 the company. IHC workers had to strike to win the first postwar wage increase 

 of 18 cents in 1946. Even after this victory, earnings were below wartime. And 

 IHC workers continued to lose ground as the profiteering price policies pursued by 

 IHC and other monopolies wiped out 1947 and 1948 wage increases almost 

 before they went into effect. 



Yet IHC profits never faltered. While the worker's position deteriorated, 

 IHC profit after taxes rose steadily through 1946, 1947, and 1948. 



By year-end 1948, Harvester net profits were more than 254 times as large as 

 profits at the end of 1945. 



By year-end 1948, Harvester workers' wages were about $12 short of the bujing 

 power of their 1945 wage. 



That is why the country is fast approaching the dangerous climax of which 

 FE-CIO and other progressive unions warned. Tremendous profits at the ex- 

 pense of workers' living standards spell disaster. To maintain a healthy function- 

 ing economy, the worker's position must not only be maintained — it must be 

 improved. 



But International Harvester's own figures show how the worker has fallen 

 further and further behind. Although the number of Harvester workers has in- 

 creased, sales and profits per worker have shot up. In other words, the company 



