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often differ widely from job to job. In short, they are fundamentally 

 unscientific, unless the science in question is purely the science of 

 unrestrained profiteering. 



Time-work on some jobs, and piece-work with a guaranteed weekly 

 rate on others, offered all the inducements to output which ought to 

 be afforded ; and the decision on any class of work as between time- 

 work and piece-work ought to be made by negotiation between the 

 employers and the Trade Unions on the merits of each case. Where 

 piece-work is adopted, more scientific systems of determining piece- 

 prices ought to be devised ; but the determination ought to be made 

 jointly by the two sides, and the science necessary for it ought to be in 

 the possession of both. 



This brings me to my second point. Time-study, motion-study, 

 and the other expedients of scientific management may have very 

 beneficent results, especially in such spheres as the study of industrial 

 fatigue and the relation of output to hours of labour. But here again, 

 science must not be the monopoly of the management or of the employer. 

 The Trade Unions must equip themselves with the knowledge that is 

 required, and ; science ' must become the handmaid of collective 

 bargaining. Just as it is one thing to say that ' welfare ' is desirable, 

 and quite another to approve of ' welfare work ' under the employer's 

 control, it is one thing to desire industry to become more scientific, 

 and quite another to accept ' Scientific Management ' at the hands 

 of the employing class. Taylor's contention that under such conditions 

 an equal balance will be struck between the management and the 

 workers, because both will be subject to the " rule of law," is unmiti- 

 gated nonsense. 



Thirdly, Scientific Management presents a number of real dangers 

 to industrial democracy. The methods of payment it suggests are a 

 crude appeal to individualism, and it is generally agreed among Trade 

 Unionists that where they are adopted the morale and sense of solidarity 

 among the workers are lowered. It sets each man's hand against 

 other's, and inaugurates a system of cut-throat competition between 

 worker and worker, even in the same grade. In many of its applications 

 it may be fatal to collective bargaining and the standard rate, though 

 this is not necessarily or universally true of all parts or aspects of it. 

 It is most true where scientific managers adopt the device of a 'scientific' 

 grading of labour which sub-divides the workers into very small groups, 

 or even treats each worker individually on his merits. Against such 

 tendencies Trade Unionism must fight. It must preserve at all cost 

 its effective right of collective bargaining, the standard rate, and the 

 solidarity of Labour. 



Fourthly, Scientific Management tends to make more impassable 

 the gulf between Labour and Management. This is an aspect of it 

 which I have been compelled, for reasons of space, largely to omit 

 from my survey ; but I must refer to it shortly here. It has a new 

 conception of forernanship, by which the foreman becomes a scientific 

 expert, and by which the foreman of to-day is replaced by a series of 



