14 



only the vaguest conception of the system that controls them. This 

 is in itself enough to condemn all methods of payment too complicated 

 to be easily understood by the ordinary worker. 



We have seen that the worker is apt to judge ' scientific ' systems of 

 payment purely by the amount whuich they enable him to earn. In 

 so far as this is the case, the gradual fall in the piece-rate which is 

 characteristic of such systems is concealed, and the worker is unaware 

 that his extra effort is a source of more than proportionate profit to 

 the employer. He may be making more money ; and that is, prima 

 facie, an argument in favour of the system. 



Scientific managers have nearly always encountered opposition on 

 the part of the workers when they have attempted to introduce these 

 systems. But it is notorious that, when once men have got used to a 

 thing, they are far more ready to put up with it. The innovator's 

 main difficulty is to get his scheme fairly launched without a stoppage ; 

 once it is established, he has a fair hope of keeping it in existence, 

 even if it is unpopular. He is therefore willing to make concessions 

 at the start, in order to make the scheme go. Now, it is clear that in 

 all the systems we have described, the actual earnings of the workers 

 depend upon the point at which the standard task of Taylor and 

 Gantt, the 100 per cent, efficiency of Harrington Emerson, and the 

 standard time allowance of the premium bonus system are fixed. 

 Fix them liberally and high earnings will follow ; illiberally, and earnings 

 will be low. 



Here again there is a flaw in the * scientific ' character of Scientific 

 Management. Time and motion study do not and cannot decide 

 whether the standard ought to be set on the basis of the superior 

 worker or the ordinary worker, or on an average struck to cover all 

 workers. They may suggest, after experiment, which method is most 

 profitable to the employer ; but they cannpt easily prove this, and they 

 certainly do not show which is the best method for the community. 



In order to get his system accepted the more easily, the scientific 

 manager may be inclined at the outset to fix a liberal standard, allowing 

 a considerable margin for earnings over the standard rate. When his 

 system has got into working order, the temptation to cut these rates, 

 which he will regard as far too liberal, becomes great. It is indeed 

 a principle laid down by advocates of the system that standard tasks, 

 times, and prices must not be altered unless the method of manufacture 

 is changed ; but this principle, by no means always observed in the 

 letter, is far less often observed in the spirit. It is a constant complaint 

 of the workers, and ' impartial ' investigators have borne it out, that 

 in many cases a very slight change in the method of manufacture is 

 made the excuse for a drastic cutting of the price for the job. Nor is 

 this all. The method of manufacture is often changed for no other 

 purpose than to enable the price to be cut. 



Some scientific managers realise the unfairness of this, but hold 

 that it can be met by more accurate methods of fixing the standards. 

 Accordingly, the job is priced not as a whole, but separately for each 



