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of basis times which have no sort of scientific sanction, in much the 

 same haphazard way as piece prices are habitually fixed. 



Here and there, however, there are cases in which the method of 

 time and motion study has been carefully applied to individual as well 

 as to repetition work. The result in such cases is often something like 

 this. There is an enormous difference between skilled men in their 

 ways of doing the same job. Men set their tools differently, and use 

 different tools for the same job, and this difference of method is clearly 

 a constant attribute of skill. The first tendency of the scientific 

 manager is to prescribe in detail to the skilled man how he shall do his 

 work what tools he shall use, and how he shall use them. A second 

 tendency follows inevitably. On many classes of work, sub-division 

 is accomplished, and a large part of the work is taken away from the 

 skilled man, and passes into the category of semi-skilled or unskilled 

 work. And, of course, when such a change takes place, the employer 

 claims to pay for the less skilled part of the job at a lower rate. This 

 tendency has been very manifest during the war period, and many of 

 the most difficult disputes have arisen over it. 



The tendency, then, of scientific management is not simply in the 

 direction of ' scientific ' systems of payment, but also in that of 

 standardisation and the elimination of skill. In the storm centre, the 

 engineering industry, its effect is to increase the amount of skilled 

 labour required for the tool-room, while more than proportionately 

 decreasing the skilled labour in the machine shops. In face of this 

 tendency, which is no doubt largely inevitable, but which the war has 

 greatly accelerated, the skilled mechanic sees himself threatened with 

 the loss of his livelihood. The scientific manager replies that the 

 increase of output made possible by the new methods will create so 

 large a new demand as to absorb all the skilled labour. Even if this 

 were true in the long run, it could hardly be expected to satisfy the 

 skilled workman, whose economic position does not enable him to think 

 in terms of the distant future. 



There is a further tendency which arises directly out of those which 

 we have just described. Standardisation takes the form not only of 

 sub-division of labour within a works, but also, and increasingly, of 

 the specialisation of works. The specialised shop or works, concen- 

 trating upon a single type of product, has long been established in 

 America, and is now making great headway here. It is likely to make 

 more headway after the war ; for it is clear that many big manufacturers 

 have settled in their own minds that the future of the National Factories 

 is to be as specialised shops under private ownership. 



This brings us to a further point. The general engineering shop, 

 in which the proportion of individual work is high, is usually making 

 mainly for special orders, and only to a small extent for stock. The 

 specialised shop, on the other hand, which concentrates on repetition 

 work, makes mainly for stock. During the war the existence of an 

 unlimited demand has, of course, produced over all industry the con- 

 ditions of making for stock. 



