are, of course, men of unusual energy, vitality, and ambition who
naturally choose the fastest gait, set up their own standards, and who
will work hard, even though it may be against their best interests. But
these few uncommon men only serve by affording a contrast to
emphasize the tendency of the average.
This common tendency to "take it easy" is greatly increased by
bringing a number of men together on similar work and at a uniform
standard rate of pay by the day.
Under this plan the better men gradually but surely slow down their
gait to that of the poorest and least efficient. When a naturally energetic
man works for a few days beside a lazy one, the logic of the situation is
unanswerable: "Why should I work hard when that lazy fellow gets the
same pay that I do and does only half as much work?"
A careful time study of men working under these conditions will
disclose facts which are ludicrous as well as pitiable.
To illustrate: The writer has timed a naturally energetic workman who,
while going and coming from work, would walk at a speed of from
three to four miles per hour, and not infrequently trot home after a day's
work. On arriving at his work he would immediately slow down to a
speed of about one mile an hour. When, for example, wheeling a loaded
wheelbarrow he would go at a good fast pace even up hill in order to be
as short a time as possible under load, and immediately on the return
walk slow down to a mile an hour, improving every opportunity for
delay short of actually sitting down. In order to be sure not to do more
than his lazy neighbor he would actually tire himself in his effort to go
slow.
These men were working under a foreman of good reputation and one
highly thought of by his employer who, when his attention was called
to this state of things, answered: "Well, I can keep them from sitting
down, but the devil can't make them get a move on while they are at
work."
The natural laziness of men is serious, but by far the greatest evil from
which both workmen and employers are suffering is the systematic
soldiering which is almost universal under all of the ordinary schemes
of management and which results from a careful study on the part of
the workmen of what they think will promote their best interests.
The writer was much interested recently to hear one small but
experienced golf caddy boy of twelve explaining to a green caddy who
had shown special energy and interest the necessity of going slow and
lagging behind his man when he came up to the ball, showing him that
since they were paid by the hour, the faster they went the less money
they got, and finally telling him that if he went too fast the other boys
would give him a licking.
This represents a type of systematic soldiering which is not, however,
very serious, since it is done with the knowledge of the employer, who
can quite easily break it up if he wishes.
The greater part of the systematic soldiering, however, is done by the
men with the deliberate object of keeping their employers ignorant of
how fast work can be done.
So universal is soldiering for this purpose, that hardly a competent
workman can be found in a large establishment, whether he works by
the day or on piece work, contract work or under any of the ordinary
systems of compensating labor, who does not devote a considerable
part of his time to studying just how slowly he can work and still
convince his employer that he is going at a good pace.
The causes for this are, briefly, that practically all employers determine
upon a maximum sum which they feel it is right for each of their
classes of employees to earn per day, whether their men work by the
day or piece.
Each workman soon finds out about what this figure is for his particular
case, and he also realizes that when his employer is convinced that a
man is capable of doing more work than he has done, he will find
sooner or later some way of compelling him to do it with little or no
increase of pay.
Employers derive their knowledge of how much of a given class of
work can be done in a day from either their own experience, which has
frequently grown hazy with age, from casual and unsystematic
observation of their men, or at best from records which are kept,
showing, the quickest time in which each job has been done. In many
cases the employer will feel almost certain that a given
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