158 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



workman be a unionist, he must, if he be consistent, slacken his pace 

 to that of the poorer one's, and hence in such shops the employer 

 usually gets the efficiency he pays for. The question, therefore, which 

 must be settled before all others, if the efficiency scheme is to be 

 adopted, is : how shall differences in efficiency be measured ? 



Obviously to base a wage scale upon mere personal judgment as to 

 the relative efficiency of men working within a shop would be out of 

 the question, not only because it opens the way for charges of personal 

 favoritism and consequent labor difficulties, but also because the com- 

 plexity of modern shops would make such a plan physically impossible. 

 The introduction of the simple piece-work plan was hailed as a great 

 advance, as it unquestionably was from certain points of view, but here, 

 too, failure was inevitable. Pace setting with the regular " trimming 

 down " of wage scales was certain to produce bad feeling amongst the 

 men, if no worse evils resulted, which was improbable. The workmen, 

 too, were held responsible for all errors, which is obviously unfair — 

 and bad policy for the employer, besides. Moreover, the plan is based 

 upon a fundamental fallacy, namely, that a just scale of wages based 

 on piece-work can be made which will at all times and under all condi- 

 tions be just. The universal objection on the part of labor unions to 

 simple piece-work has both theoretical and practical justification. 



In view of these facts, modifications were suggested, notably in the 

 Halsey, Eowan, Emerson and Taylor systems. 3 Space does not permit 

 a discussion of the relative merits of these systems, even though it 

 might fall within the scope of this article. Suffice it to say that a 

 scheme had to be devised of accurate, concise individual records that 

 could be used so as to be fair to the employer, yet that should recognize 

 and encourage the good workman while it did not discourage the poor 

 one. This has been done after considerable experimentation by effi- 

 ciency engineers, and has proven satisfactory. The Holerith Service 

 Eequisition card 4 is a fair sample of what can be done along this line, 

 and makes it possible to measure relative efficiency of workmen, not 

 only with each other, but with whatever standard existing conditions 

 justify. 



We are now in a position to consider the other side of the question. 

 What is the attitude of the laboring man to these efficiency schemes? 

 It must be admitted that so far as organized labor, at least, is con- 

 cerned its opposition is almost universal, and that this opposition has 

 been the source of much criticism. Two questions naturally present 

 themselves at this juncture: why does unionism oppose the efforts of 

 the efficiency engineer, and second, what will be the ultimate outcome 

 of such opposition ? Let us consider these queries in their logical order. 



3 See Bender, "Systems of Wages and their Influence on Efficiency," 

 Engineering Magazine, 26: 498. 



4 See Engineering Magazine, 36 : 820. 



