33 



it as absolutely vital. Getting rid of the efficiency method of payment 

 would open the way to a consideration of the other questions on their 

 merits. Mr. Kenold also said that time-study methods were bound to 

 be complicated, but I want to say that the method of payment must 

 be simple, even if the calculations on which it is based are abstruse, 

 and I want men able to understand these complications to do the 

 bargaining about piece work prices on behalf of Labour. Mr Kenold 

 said you could not fix piece prices by collective bargaining you cannot 

 perhaps decide once for all all the little details, but the method of 

 payment could be much fairer than it is at present if you had better 

 organisation in the workshop, and trade union officials were better 

 equipped to deal with such matters. There should be no ' efficiency ' 

 system unless there is a really strong intelligent control by the workers 

 in the workshop. I do not think the relations of Labour and Capital 

 will be improved after the war, and I hope they will not, because I 

 believe in the class-struggle and regard their interests as irreconcilable. 

 Any system which supposes co-operation between Capital and Labour 

 will break down. This is not vital to all the arguments put forward 

 on behalf of Scientific Management. I think it quite conceivable that 

 some of the suggestions made by Scientific Management, rightly 

 used and fully understood, would strengthen the trade union 

 movement. I merely criticised the things which would weaken the 

 movement, and which Labour ought not to accept. All employers 

 are not like Mr. R-enold : for every good one you will get a hundred 

 bad variations of so-called Scientific Management. Most employers 

 will try to adopt its worst features, particularly. ' efficiency ' methods 

 of payment by results, especially as employers have increased their 

 organisation and production so much during the war, and will desire 

 cheap labour power for world competition after the war. 



ME. RENOLD'S KEPLY. 



The first speaker raised the point about skilled labour displaced by 

 machinery. I believe I am right in saying that there is a large cor- 

 poration which has adopted an arrangement with the trade union 

 whereby they undertake that not more than 5 per cent, shall be displaced 

 in any one year, and for those so displaced they will pay to the trade 

 union fund a sum equal to what the trade union has paid to these 

 men. I believe the same arrangement is in force regarding ordinary 

 unemployment, i.e., they recoup the union for the amount of unemploy- 

 ment benefit. The other criticisms fall into three general lines : one 

 is, that the present method of running industry is nothing more than 

 an exploitation of the worker, and that Scientific Management is a 

 trick to turn the screw a little more. Such a charge applies to the 

 whole industrial system and contains, no doubt, some truth, but it is 

 not what we are here to discuss. My point was that Scientific 

 Management would offer a chance of progress in the direction of 

 increased control by labour of industry. 



