Yachts & Country Clubs Help Production

THE American worker is the most pampered in the world. U.S. industry pays him the world's highest wage scales, then shells out another $25 billion a year (or about $1 for every $5 paid in payrolls) for such fringe benefits as pensions, paid vacations and welfare funds. But the real frosting on the cake is a vast assortment of "extras," and ranging all the way from equipment for lunch-hour ball games to employee country clubs and yacht clubs with company-owned fleets of yachts.

At the start, such special frills were sometimes offered just to ward off unionization. Later, during the war, when wages were frozen and new workers hard to find, the companies with the most extra benefits got the best selection of workers. Since then, many firms have become convinced that a good recreation program pays off in more ways than just at the personnel office. It not only helps them hang on to their good workers, but also pays off in productivity if employees are provided with the facilities to relax and get away from the job in their off time.

Employee recreation got its start when Chicago Railroad Car Builder George Pullman passed out some baseball equipment to the men in his shop in 1883. By last year it had snowballed to the point where 30,000 U.S. companies spent $800 million on recreation--50% higher than in 1948. The National Industrial Recreation Association, organized by 14 companies in 1941, now has 300 members.

Baseball teams and bowling leagues are by no means the only things that companies offer. For its 12,000 Dayton workers, National Cash Register Co. runs a 166-acre park with picnic grounds, swimming pool and two 18-hole golf courses, is now planning a field house for winter sports. International Business Machines Corp. has three country clubs for its workers, charges membership fees of $1 a year for employees, $1 for wives (or husbands), and 25-50-c- for each child. Detroit Edison Co. and Standard Oil Co. of California provide yacht clubs. The employee-run Convair Recreation Association owns a 125-acre ranch and a rodeo arena. At least five Atlanta firms have built private parks for their employees at nearby Allatoona Lake.

The costs of these programs can be nominal or, as in the case of Standard Oil of California, they can reach as high as $150,000 a year. In Los Angeles the McCulloch Motors Corp. provides facilities for most popular sports, sponsors such activities as skiing and square dances, and has a $1,000,000 employee recreation hall with twelve bowling alleys and a low-cost, open-air cafeteria (typical three-course lunch: 78-c-). Recently, an employees' committee asked for additional benefits, including pensions and sick leave. The company explained that its present program, which costs 56-c- per hour per employee, was all that it could afford. When it offered to substitute the new benefits for some that the workers already enjoyed, the employees decided that they did not want to give up anything in the com pany program.

Such programs are by no means universal. In heavily unionized cities such as Pittsburgh and Detroit, extra benefits are less common. Workers in big cities are less likely to want company-sponsored recreational facilities. Moreover, the unions fight for the loyalty of their members, try to incorporate extras into their contracts, and often have their own recreation programs, such as that of Detroit's big U.A.W. Local 600 at Ford.

Many workers look with suspicion on company recreation, say that they would rather get the extra money in their paychecks. To avoid the company stamp, many a corporation works out ways to let employees finance their own programs. A sizable share of the money often comes from plant vending-machine profits (about $100,000 a year for the Convair Recreation Association). Another way to remove the stigma of paternalism is to let workers run the program. At Chicago's Bell & Howell Co. the employee recreation corporation has only three management members on the 15-man board.

Workers and unions are not the only ones to be suspicious of such programs: many a company still takes a dim view of them. Looking at the elaborate fringe benefits of neighboring firms, the head of a Los Angeles aircraft subcontracting firm snorted: "What the hell are those guys in business for --the benefit of their employees?"

But more and more companies are coming around to the view that pampering pays. In the traditionally low-paying insurance business, which pioneered in pensions and sick benefits, some new frills are being added. In Houston the Prudential Insurance Co. of America two years ago put up a $9,000,000 building with a swimming pool, outdoor lounge and free-lunch cafeteria. The company now has a waiting list for clerical help. Says Prudential Vice President Charles Fleetwood: "This building is one of the biggest bargains we ever got."

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