PIECEWORK

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 184, 25 October 1927, Page 8

PIECEWORK

Sir, — It is generally recognised by those who have worked under the piecework system that it means full employment one week and very often no work at all during the next week. An employee may work six days, and in a good week earn a high figure. Next week, probably, he will only get 30 hours’ work, and his earnings shrink in proportion. There is no assurance from one week to another what his earnings are to be. The great fluctuation in the earnings caused by piecework results in lowering the standard of living of the working man. The standard of living of the working man is determined not by the weeks of the larger earnings, but by those weeks in which the worker is compelled to live on the smallest amount. When the workers in the weeks of the smallest income are forced to reduce their necessities to the minimum, this minimum becomes the irreducible minimum of the standard of living, and wages have a tendency to be reduced to the level of that minimum. This process may not be self-evident, but statistics have proved that the fluctuation of wages in the long run reduces the standard of living to that of the weeks in which the worker gets the smallest earnings. Workers are told that, if they accept piecework, employers will encourage them to earn big monev. In almost every factory where I have worked, as soon as big money has been earned, rates were cut. The faster

we worked the lower the rate we got. My numerous experiences convince me that any system of payment by result is inimical to the best interests of our industrial life and happiness, as it tends to develop the worst possible characteristics by appealing to the avaricious and acquisitive side of men’s character. A MEMBER OF THE ENGINEERING UNION.