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minute operation or process included in it, and a guarantee is given 

 that there shall be no change in price on any process that is not altered. 

 Thus, on a job priced at Is., and consisting of six operations ranging 

 from 3d. to Id. in price, a change in process on one of these operations 

 (price 2d.) might have been made an excuse for a' drastic cut, say to 

 8d. for the whole job. Under the system now suggested it would only 

 be possible to cut on the 2d. paid for the operation actually affected 

 by the change. 



This is obviously fairer, as far as it goes ; but it is only capable of 

 application to highly standardised jobs. This raises a wider question 

 which we must now discuss. 



Different systems of payment are suitable to different classes of work. 

 There are obviously many jobs which can only be done on time-work, 

 and these include all jobs, such as most railway work, which are not 

 measurable in terms of output, or in which the worker has no control 

 of his output. There are certain jobs which can be worked on piece- 

 work even without a guaranteed day rate. A case in point is much of 

 the work in the iron and steel industry, where, given a tonnage rate, 

 the worker can be sure of a fairly regular level of output. If it were 

 not for the abnormal place and similar questions, which make a 

 minimum necessary, the same might be true of coal-hewing. In other 

 cases, a guaranteed time-rate is absolutely necessary, because the 

 worker cannot be sure of a regular output, or because there is no 

 assurance that the piece-work prices will give a regular yield. 



The whole range of machine operations can be divided very broadly 

 into two classes repetition work and individual work. On repetition 

 work, the operative sticks to a narrow round of operations and pro- 

 duces constantly a more or less uniform product. On individual or 

 general work, on the other hand, the worker has usually a wider range 

 of operations to perform, and the product varies from day to day or 

 from week to week, both in character and in amount. It is clearly 

 far easier to fix a standard of output and a constant price on repetition 

 work than on individual work. No matter how great the number of 

 operations performed may be, if they are of a recurring character, 

 a standard price can with a fair chance of success be fixed for them. 

 The cotton industry, with its elaborate weaving price-lists, affords 

 the best example of this ; but the method of the weavers' list could 

 easily be applied over a far larger range of industries than now to jobs 

 which are measurable in terms of output. 



The measurement of individual or general work is a far more compli- 

 cated matter. Work of this class is usually far more skilled than 

 repetition work, and, as the product varies continually, it is far more 

 difficult to fix a standard price. Nevertheless, great efforts have been 

 made by scientific managers and, in this country, by advocates of the 

 premium bonus system, to apply their method to the widest possible 

 range of skilled individual work. So far as the premium bonus system 

 in this country is concerned, the result has very often been the fixing 



