The difficult post-war decades had brought one tremendous advantage to the Big Three (GM, Ford, and Chrysler): a chance to counter the effects of unionism. Frightened by the radical spirit and mass actions of the late 1930s, the Big Three made a deal with the UAW after the war. Their overriding managerial concern was maximizing profits, and the prime condition for doing that in the auto industry was control of the shop floor. All operations had to be evaluated in terms of worker-hour and worker-minute costs. Time-study experts investigated each job to eliminate wasted motion and to 'invent new procedures for increasing the work load. A worker at the GM plant at Lordstown explained the process in an interview printed in the September 9, 1973, issue of the New York Times: "They tell you, 'Put in 10 screws,' and you do it. Then a couple of weeks later they say, 'Put in 15 screws,' and next they say, 'Well, we don't need you no more; give it to the next man."' This worker was giving a specific example of the way management tried to systematize speed-up on an unprecedented scale. Sometimes the entire assembly line was accelerated either on a permanent basis or for temporary periods. Sometimes the number of operations required of a single person was increased. And sometimes workers were forced to keep up with the precise rhythms of a new machine or tool. Management could not get back to the "good old days" of Henry Ford when workers were not allowed to talk during lunch; but washing-up times, rest periods, job-preparation periods, and other paid non-production times were reduced. The net result of all facets of speed-up was that more labor was extracted from each person during each working hour. This increased tempo of work was not confined to a 40-hour week. The companies discovered that the savings from not paying fringe benefits to additional workers made it cheaper for them to pay time-and-a-half rates for overtime than to increase the total workforce. Compulsory overtime was enforced throughout the industry during the 1950s. Auto workers were made to work one to four hours overtime after finishing their regular eight-hour shift, and many were made to work on Saturdays and occasionally on Sundays.