This is one of the principal reasons why cooperation or "profit-sharing" either through selling stock to the employees or through dividends on wages received at the end of the year, etc., have been at the best only mildly effective in stimulating men to work hard.The nice time which they are sure to have to-day if they take things easily and go slowly proves more attractive than steady hard work with a possible reward to be shared with others six months later.A second reason for the inefficiency of profit-sharing schemes had been that no form of cooperation has yet been devised in which each individual is allowed free scope for his personal ambition.Personal ambition always has been and will remain a more powerful incentive to exertion than a desire for the general welfare.The few misplaced drones, who do the loafing and share equally in the profits, with the rest, under cooperation are sure to drag the better men down toward their level.
Other and formidable difficulties in the path of cooperative schemes are, the equitable division of the profits, and the fact that, while workmen are always ready to share the profits, they are neither able nor willing to share the losses.Further than this, in many cases, it is neither right nor just that they should share either the profits or the losses, since these may be due in great part to causes entirely beyond their influence or control, and to which they do not contribute.
To come back to the girls inspecting bicycle balls, however, the final outcome of all the changes was that thirty-five girls did the work formerly done by one hundred and twenty.And that the accuracy of the work at the higher speed was two-thirds greater than at the former slow speed.
The good that came to the girls was, First.That they averaged from 80 to 100 per cent higher wages than they formerly received.
Second.Their hours of labor were shortened from 10 1/2 to 8 1/2 per day, with a Saturday half holiday.And they were given four recreation periods properly distributed through the day, which made overworkmg impossible for a healthy girl.
Third.Each girl was made to feel that she was the object of especial care and interest on the part of the management, and that if anything went wrong with hershe could always have a helper and teacher in the management to lean upon.
Fourth.All young women should be given two consecutive days of rest (with pay)each month, to be taken whenever they may choose.It is my impression that these girls were given this privilege, although I am not quite certain on this point.
The benefits which came to the company from these changes were:
First.A substantial improvement in the quality of the product.
Second.A material reduction in the cost of inspection, in spite of the extra expense involved in clerk work, teachers, time study, over-inspectors, and in paying higher wages.
Third.That the most friendly relations existed between the management and the employees, which rendered labor troubles of any kind or a strike impossible.
These good results were brought about by many changes which substituted favorable for unfavorable working conditions.It should be appreciated, however, that the one element which did more than all of the others was, the careful selection of girls with quick perception to replace those whose perceptions were slow -- (the substitution of girls with a low personal coefficient for those whose personal coefficient was high) -- the scientific selection of the workers.
The illustrations have thus far been purposely confined to the more elementary types of work, so that a very strong doubt must still remain as to whether this kind of cooperation is desirable in the case of more intelligent mechanics, that is, in the case of men who are more capable of generalization, and who would therefore be more likely, of their own volition, to choose the more scientific and better methods.The following illustrations will be given for the purpose of demonstrating the fact that in the higher classes of work the scientific laws which are developed are so intricate that the high-priced mechanic needs (even more than the cheap laborer) the cooperation of men better educated than himself in finding the laws, and then in selecting, developing, and training him to work in accordance with these laws.These illustrations should make perfectly clear our original proposition that in practically all of the mechanic arts the science which underlies each workman's act is so great and amounts to so much that the workman who is best suited to actually doing the work is incapable, either through lack of education or through insufficient mental capacity, of understanding this science.
A doubt, for instance, will remain in the minds perhaps of most readers (in the case of an establishment which manufactures the same machine, year in and year out, in large quantities, and in which, therefore, each mechanic repeats the same limited series of operations over and over again), whether the ingenuity of each workman and the help which he from time to time receives from his foreman will not develop such superior methods and such a personal dexterity that no scientific study which could be made would result in a material increase in efficiency.
