August 1, .1911.] 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



417 



Piece Work and Bonus Payment In Rubber Mills. 



By a Practical Man. 



IN paying for labor in rubber factory work, several methods 

 are employed, among them being ordinary graded wages by 

 the hour, piece-work, bonus or premium additions to regular 

 wages, and some arrangement \ hereby a portion of the earn- 

 ings of the factory are distributed among its employees. We 

 will discuss in this article the relative values of piece-work 

 payment and bonus payment. 



Wages, at first glance, would seem to be the money earned by 

 a workman. Tliis is, however, not. literally true. There is a 

 nnnimum wage which must be paid a man for a day's work 

 without specific reference to its quantity or quality. From this 

 minimum the wage rate rises, governed by a number of condi- 

 tions not always under control of the factory. The minimum 

 is found, naturally, where the labor supply is abundant, and 

 also unskilled, for it is true that men in the skilled trades or 

 occupations, are. under normal conditions in this country, rarely 

 long out of work. But many factories are more or less isolated 

 from centers where labor can be readily obtained, hence the 

 problem is, perhaps, more vital, and the superintendent, to pro- 

 tect himself, must make use of a quality of men, and pay a 

 higher wage than would be necessary under different conditions. 

 The average factory pays what it has to ; for common labor, 

 $1.50 to $2.00 per day. One that has the reputation for paying 

 lowest wages, invariably finds the "floaters," the shiftless, and 

 the unskilled besieging the employee's entrance. 



The development from unskilled material, of the accomplished 

 artisan, is therefore, a matter calling for patient, persevering 

 training throughout considerable periods of time, during which 

 the factory, in addition to the $1.50 to $2.00 per day in wages, 

 has had to pay a more or less exacting toll in the way of broken 

 machinery, and imperfect goods, with an occasional finger or 

 arm. or other serious injury thrown in by way of variety. 



The finished producer, skilled workman, machine operative, 

 etc., having been evolved liy training, what wages will he com- 

 mand, and what, per contra, in the way of production should 

 you expect from him ? Of two things one can be very sure : 

 He knows what wages he wants, and just the amount of effort 

 he will put into his work to get it. He has acquired skill under 

 his employer's teaching, but he has also secured a fine and dis- 

 criminating judgment of what constitutes a day's w-ork. 



Such a workman is not a bad fellow. He has been em- 

 ployed five, fifteen, twenty-five years, and will put his shoulder 

 to the wheel to help get out a rush order on time. One can 

 rely upon the quality of his work, on his dependability — but he 

 don't go home at night exhausted by his exertions, for the 

 very particular reason tliat, liarring an occasional spurt for 

 "auld acquaintance sake," there has been no extra money in 

 it for him. He travels along in the rut worn by common fac- 

 tory practice, and will not depart from the pace workmen have 

 set for themselves. 



This being a basic fact, it is interesting to notice that some 

 rubber factories still cling to wage payment by the hour. It is 

 also true that where this is the rule, nothing like the real pro- 

 ductive capacity of a workman can be secured. 



A factory conducted along the easy lines of pay by tlie hour. 

 successful in the past. establisht<l in the quality of its goods, is 

 loath to depart from time-honored methods at the behest of 

 competition. But instances are numerous where they have been 

 obliged to do this in order to maintain their position, their 

 prestige, their very existence. It is self-deluding to contend 

 that quality, mu.st of necessity, be sacrificed to (|uantit\-. The 



"other fellow" is turning out the goods and underselling the 

 conservative, pay-by-the-hour factory. Then, at last, the emer- 

 gency must be faced. It is of too vital importance to be longer 

 ignored, and haste is made to compare the advantages of piece- 

 work and of bonus incentives in payment for factory work. 



Let us consider the results that would accrue from the adop- 

 tion of "piece-work." 



Factory history has well written into it the perils that lay 

 along the piece-work payment path. The general subject has 

 been so widely discussed among employees, that, whether they 

 have had personal experience with it or not, the average work- 

 man views it with suspicion. He has, perhaps, come to regard it 

 as that new thing by which the boss proposes to get a larger per- 

 centage of work out of him, or his machine, than lie is willing 

 to pay for in proportion. Perhaps he looks back to the time 

 when it was tried on him, and he, in the simplicity of his en- 

 thusiasm for better wages, "worked," to find, after a trial of a 

 few weeks or months, that the new rate was cut down, but the 

 demand of the factory for greater production insisted upon. 

 .'\fter such an experience it is difficult to get a workman to 

 control his dislike for any innovations in the method of earning 

 his wages. 



It need hardly be said, however, that such blunders (for such 

 unpreparcdness is blundering), on the part of the factory man 

 agcment can be easily avoided. To do so, careful studies must 

 be made. First, of each piece of machinery, to ascertain its 

 production in pounds or feet per hour, as then operated, these 

 figures to be properly tabulated. Such a study would probably 

 disclose that the machine was not turning out 75 per cent, of its 

 normal capacity, perhaps not 50 per cent of it, owing to any 

 one of the following causes: If a mixing mill: because the 

 maximum weight of a batch a workman could handle in a 

 given time was not furnished by the compounder ; or because he 

 lost time in the beginning of each session, waiting for his mill 

 to "warm up"; or waiting for material. If a spewing machine: 

 because workmen had to wait for stock from the calender, or 

 mill, or had to return it because, when it did arrive, it was 

 unlit for use. If a calender: it is too hot or too cold, or it is 

 waiting for material from the mixing room, or cloth from the 

 dryer. These retardments to, not maximum, but merely nor- 

 mal productiveness of machines, are all subject to correction at 

 the hands of the m-en in charge of departmental work, and it 

 -vould he folly to rush into piece-work or any new method of 

 7c'(7.!,'c payment before correcting evils in administration. For it 

 must be borne in mind that these evils have little to do with 

 the individual capacity of a workman, but with the lack of ef- 

 fective management under which he labors. If a piece or pound 

 work rate was made without first correcting such conditions, 

 did they exist, the workman working to a common end, would 

 secure extra pay for doing what, had all the departments of the 

 mill been properly managed, he would have done as a part of 

 the regular work and production of the day. and without extra 

 exertion on his part. 



It is also true that the introduction of any plan whereby 

 workmen may increase their wages, is, to a degree, corrective 

 of the evils to which reference has been made. For the man 

 who is working to increase his wages, and is dependent in part 

 on material to be supplied by another man or department, makes 

 his wants known in no uncertain way. and demands proper 

 service all along the line. But what a workman can secure, a 

 foreman or superintendent shimld have foreseen and provided for. 



