Shop Management | Page 9

done under the system is diminished, although it does not entirely cease. On the other hand, the tendency of the men to soldier on new work which is started, and on such portions as are still done on day work, is even greater under the Towne-Halsey plan than under piece work.
To illustrate: Workmen, like the rest of mankind, are more strongly influenced by object lessons than by theories. The effect on men of such an object lesson as the following will be apparent. Suppose that two men, named respectively Smart and Honest, are at work by the day and receive the same pay, say 20 cents per hour. Each of these men is given a new piece of work which could be done in one hour. Smart does his job in four hours (and it is by no means unusual for men to soldier to this extent). Honest does his in one and one-half hours.
Now, when these two jobs start on this basis under the Towne-Halsey plan and are ultimately done in one hour each, Smart receives for his job 20 cents per hour + a premium of 20 cents = a total of 40 cents. Honest receives for his job 20 cents per hour + a premium of 3 1/8 cents = a total of 23 1/8 cents.
Most of the men in the shop will follow the example of Smart rather than that of Honest and will "soldier" to the extent of three or four hundred per cent if allowed to do so. The Towne-Halsey system shares with ordinary piece work then, the greatest evil of the latter, namely that its very foundation rests upon deceit, and under both of these systems there is necessarily, as we have seen, a great lack of justice and equality in the starting-point of different jobs.
Some of the rates will have resulted from records obtained when a first-class man was working close to his maximum speed, while others will be based on the performance of a poor man at one-third or one quarter speed.
The injustice of the very foundation of the system is thus forced upon the workman every day of his life, and no man, however kindly disposed he may be toward his employer, can fail to resent this and be seriously influenced by it in his work. These systems are, therefore, of necessity slow and irregular in their operation in reducing costs. They "drift" gradually toward an increased output, but under them the attainment of the maximum output of a first-class man is almost impossible.
Objection has been made to the use of the word "drifting" in this connection. It is used absolutely without any intention of slurring the Towne-Halsey system or in the least detracting from its true merit.
It appears to me, however, that "drifting" very accurately describes it, for the reason that the management, having turned over the entire control of the speed problem to the men, the latter being influenced by their prejudices and whims, drift sometimes in one direction and sometimes in another; but on the whole, sooner or later, under the stimulus of the premium, move toward a higher rate of speed. This drifting, accompanied as it is by the irregularity and uncertainty both as to the final result which will be attained and as to how long it will take to reach this end, is in marked contrast to the distinct goal which is always kept in plain sight of both parties under task management, and the clear-cut directions which leave no doubt as to the means which are to be employed nor the time in which the work must be done; and these elements constitute the fundamental difference between the two systems. Mr. Halsey, in objecting to the use of the word "drifting" as describing his system, has referred to the use of his system in England in connection with a "rate-fixing" or planning department, and quotes as follows from his paper to show that he contemplated control of the speed of the work by the management:
"On contract work undertaken for the first time the method is the same except that the premium is based on the estimated time for the execution of the work."
In making this claim Mr. Halsey appears to have entirely lost sight of the real essence of the two plans. It is task management which is in use in England, not the Towne-Halsey system; and in the above quotation Mr. Halsey describes not his system but a type of task management, in which the men are paid a premium for carrying out the directions given them by the management.
There is no doubt that there is more or less confusion in the minds of many of those who have read about the task management and the Towne-Halsey system. This extends also to