THE WORKER'S WAGE

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 278, 20 August 1919, Page 7

THE WORKER'S WAGE

NEW METHOD OF ASSESSING VALUE

PIECE RATES AND OTHERS

_ Piece rates are not liked by the working man. There Is, saj's a recent writer, "instinotive and latent hostf.itj'' to them. They lessen the responsibility of employers, and hence havo been widely jri favour. • It is therefore a matter of interest to find Mr. Harrington Jsr.evwn, the high priest of efficiency in America, on the workingman'6 side in condemning the piece system altogethar. Whether the workman will like what he wants to substitute for it is another question. He would replace it by the schedule plan, whioh ho compares to the selling Of goods by weight. It results, he says, in "an exact relation between-pay and delivery." By the schedule method a man is paid' by time, but his pay goes upo or down- according to the amount of work that he accomplishes. How this differs from other methods of payment mdy be gathered from Mr. Emerson's illustrations in au article contributed to

"industrial Management" (Now York, June). He begins by assorting that all American industrial life is over-equipped and under-supervised—too much material, too much equipment, too many workers—all loosolv ana carelessly and inadeqaately handled and directed. He then goes on:

"Piece rates increase the supervision by the workers, and in this respect they weie a 6tep in the right direction; but in so far as they lessen the responsibility by and supervision of conditions by executives, they are a step backward. Of course, we all gratefully admit that piece rates were an attempt to correct the great evil ot' unplanned, unscheduled, and unsupervised or dispatched day work left to tho dishonest instincts of shirking foreigners.

"A few weeks ago 1 watched a gang of this kind. Thoy wero using wheelbarrows to move gravel sixty feet, from a pile in the street to a concrete-mixer on a lawn. A ton-mile a dnv; or one hundred pounds on a man's back twenty miles in a day, is a full day's work done dnily by millions of workers. With a wheelbarrow, running on planks to cany tho load, the delivery ought to be more than a ton-milo a day. On account of frequent loading. I'would cut tho distance to ton miles, of which five miles would be with dmpty barrows. "A very elemontary and leniont time and motion study shows:—

Timein „ minutes. To walk 60 feet 0.5 To dump barrow i). 5 To return empty 0,5 To load barrow 1 For rest 0.5 Total 3,0 20 trips per hour; 160 .trips per day of eight' hours. "These foreign friends of mine, whoso wages wero 0.5U dollars (2s. Id.) an hour, ii ade two round trips an hour instead of twenty. The labour cost per borrow k-ad was 0.25 dulUas (about x=.) instead of 0.025 dollars (about lJd.), The man efficiency on this easy scliedulo was ten per cent. In fact, tho whole of the work was unnecessary, since tho gravel could have boon dumped without difficulty at the mixer. "Betwoen times these 'workers' sat on their barrows, smoked, gossiped, joked, laughed, and when they did shovel or wnis tliey nun'ott ut a rate so slow as to bo an effort, although it was early in the day. "We photographed them as a proof of loahng, out tuoy actually delightedly posed and asked l'oi- prints. "A piece-rate based on 0.70 dollars (about lis.) an hour to the men would havo been a gain ever the day-rato plan. ",ti pieco rates 'have so manifest au advantage over day rates through standardising both costs and operations and through inoreasing responsibility and au'iwnauc piamung, sciieclunng, aud dispatching, why are they opposed by near,y all modern industrial specialists? "They aro olten Letter than day work, yet they aro so inferior to tho better plan of time schedules that we havo found diem (pieco rates) the most serious barrier to the introduction of better methods whoso immediate lesult is both to lower costs, to increaso output, and to increase individual compensation.

"1 shad trv to illustrate, if I can, tic difference between day work, piece rates, and time schedules. When a boy in a country, now lameless, whoso regulations wero strict and whoro robbing orchards was not a condoned privilege of boyhood, I used to pay a fixed sum, 0.25 dollars, for permission to enter a plum orchard and eat all I could, more or less. No connection between pay and consumption except my individual whim. An improvement in this plan is to sell eggs by the dozen, thereforo by iho piece; But this is, after all, crude, sinco there is a great difference between bantam and cochin eggs. ,Somo hen's eggs I recently bought wero searcely larger than pigeon Bize. An improvement on the piece plan is to sell eggs by weight, sinco then it makes littlo difference whether pigeon or gooso eggs aro delivered. "Tho day plan establishes no relation between pay i.ud delivery. "Tho jiiece plan establishes a crudo relation Between pay and delivery. "The weight or other schedule plan establishes an exaot relation between pay and delivery. , "There is, therefore, a bettor method, a much better method, tlio time schedulo method, of compensating labour than either day rates or pieco rates, a method that eliminates a great many wastes, therefore lessens costs. The gain, which is very great, is apportioned to lour groups: "1. To tho public, which, on account of price, buys more, thus further benefiting both worker and manager. "2. To tlio workers who receive progressively more per hour as unit costs fall.

"3. To the permanent managers, including financial backers. "1. To the passing specialists, either within or without the organisation, whoso patents or special skill in methods of all kinds put tho better plan into operation.

"The worker ultimately gets it all, since he is also tho consumer, sinco the managing group is recruited from the worker, since patents and other speoial mothods ofter a while booomo tmblio property."