WASHINGTON -- Business, labor and academic leaders Thursday unveiled their battle plans for competing with Japan and other nations to maintain the thinning American productivity edge and revitalize basic industries.
Automation, robots and computers as well as better training, management and even lifetime employment guarantees were among the informal recommendations presented to the White House Conference on Productivity Thursday.
The conference was held at the State Department headquarters and drew several hundred people to hear and review the results of a two-year search for ways to counter Japanese efficiencies and the cheaper labor available elsewhwere.
A final report will be presented to President Reagan within four months to guide him in shaping legislation to be submitted to Congress.
'We look to you for new guidance,' President Reagan told the group.
Improvements in productivity, he said, are 'vital to regaining our competitive position in world markets and creating job opportunities for an expanding American labor force.'
The United States could lose its edge in productivity, despite the fact that output per hour of pay is again increasing with the economic recovery, one conference organizer said.
C. Jackson Grayson, a former government official who now operates a productivity center in Texas, said a noncompetitive United States could become as much a reality as a test tube baby -- 'incredible, but not inconceivable.'
The conference broadly endorsed improved quality control and worker involvement, better training, updated management techniques and the adaptation of computers to help make even basic industries more efficient.
Specific short-term actions included the establishment of presidential science and mathematics teaching awards.
The productivity experts and top business and labor executives participating in the conference prepared their recommendations during four regional seminars this summer, with the help of a special computer network.
James Baker, an executive vice president at General Electric Corp., told conference participants American industries have a choice of automating their operations or moving to other countries.
'You must automate, emigrate or evaporate,' he said. 'There may not be a tomorrow for the timid or shortsighted industry.'
He added another warning that competition from Japan and other countries was 'destroying the living standards of our industrial cities.'
The United States is still the world leader in productivity and Japan's rapid catchup improvements have slowed down, government figures show.
But the improvements that always accompany an economic recovery could produce a dangerous euphoria among American businessmen that will leave them ill-prepared for the next recession, Baker said.
