Automotive mechanics. Stick to your job! Read this official statement
Text-only labour-retention notice in a red, white and blue border: 'Automotive Mechanics - Stick to Your Job!' with an Office of Defense Transportation 'Essential Transportation Worker' badge. It quotes the War Manpower Commission chairman, declares transport repair 'a war job', and tells mechanics not to transfer. Authority and official status carry the appeal; there is no pictorial element beyond the badge.
Propaganda techniques used in this poster
- Date
- 1943
- Period
- Second World War
- Made by
- Automotive Council for War Production; Office of Defense Transportation
- Region
- North America
- Country
- United States
- Medium
- Poster
- Issuer type
- Mixed
- Regime
- Roosevelt Administration
- Leader
- Franklin D. Roosevelt
- Audience
- Domestic public
- Purpose
- Mobilize or secure compliance
- Themes
- Labor, Home front
- Event
- World War II
- Regime
- Roosevelt administration
- Leader
- Franklin D. Roosevelt
- Source
- Identified Openly sourced: the speaker is who they say they are
- Source
- U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, Record Group 44, World War II Posters, retrieved October 4, 2026
- Rights
- Public domain (U.S. government work)
Automotive Council for War Production; Office of Defense Transportation. National Archives and Records Administration, RG 44, 44-PA-434 (NAID 513893).
Text on the object
AUTOMOTIVE MECHANICS STICK TO YOUR JOB! ESSENTIAL TRANSPORTATION WORKER OFFICIALLY APPROVED ODT OFFICE OF DEFENSE TRANSPORTATION KEEP 'EM ROLLING READ THIS OFFICIAL STATEMENT On February 13, 1943, Mr. Paul V. McNutt, chairman of the War Manpower Commission, made the following statement: "The whole objective of the Manpower Program is to have the right workers in the right war jobs at the right time. It is not helping your Government reach that objective if you leave a job which is useful to the war to find a place doing something for which you have no skill." THE OPERATION OF TRANSPORTATION SYSTEMS AND THE REPAIR AND MAINTENANCE OF TRANSPORTATION EQUIPMENT IS A WAR JOB. . . . It has been designated by the War Manpower Commission as an essential activity. . . . Remember this, and if your job as a truck driver or a mechanic is the highest skilled job you can perform, you are the right worker in the right job. STAY ON THE JOB AND DO NOT TRANSFER TO WORK WHERE YOUR PARTICULAR SKILL IS NOT USED TO ITS HIGHEST CAPACITY. OTTO S. BEYER, Director Division of Transport Personnel OFFICE OF DEFENSE TRANSPORTATION AUTOMOTIVE COUNCIL FOR WAR PRODUCTION
