An improvement in the shape or contour of the 'cutting edge' for a particular material is an unqualified gain.So is a discovery as to the ways in which hardness or softness of metals affects the cutting rate.But when it is a question of evoking from the workman a higher pace of movement to meet the requirements of the speeded-up machine, no such consistency of interests can be assumed.The fact that by selection, instruction, and minute supervision, workmen can be got to work successfully at the higher speed, and regard themselves as sufficiently compensated by a bonus of 35 per cent, does not settle the question of human values.So far as the selective process simply chooses the men most easily capable of working at a higher speed and of eliminating those who could not easily or possibly adapt themselves to it, no net increase of human cost is involved.But so far as the bonus and the 'athletic' spirit which it is used to evoke,5 induce workmen to give out an amount of muscular or nervous energy injurious to them in the long run, the human cost may greatly outweigh both the social value of the increased output and the utility to them of higher wages.How crucial is this question of speeding-up the human labour is well illustrated by the experiments in bricklaying, by means of which the bricklayers engaged on straight work, were raised from an average of 120 bricks per man per hour to 350.By alterations of apparatus Mr.Gilbreth dispenses with certain movements which bricklayers formerly considered necessary, while saving time in the actual process of laying by using both hands at the same time, bricks being picked up with the left hand at the same instant that a trowel of mortar is seized with the right.
'It is highly likely that many times during all of these years individual bricklayers have recognised the possibility of eliminating each of these unnecessary motions.But even if, in the past, he did invent each one of Mr.Gilbreth's improvements, no bricklayer could alone increase his speed through their adoption, because it will be remembered that in all cases several bricklayers work together in a row and that the walls all around a building must grow at the same rate of speed.No one bricklayer, then, can work much faster than the one next to him.Nor has any workman the authority to make other men cooperate with him to do faster work.It is only through enforced standardisation of methods, enforced adoption of the best implements and working conditions, and enforced cooperation that this faster work can be assured.And the duty of enforcing the adoption of standards and of enforcing this cooperation rests with the management alone.The management must supply continually one or more teachers to show each new man the new and simpler motions, and the slower men must be constantly watched and helped until they have risen to their proper speed.All of those who, after teaching, either will not or cannot work in accordance with the new methods and at the higher speed, must be discharged by the management.The management must also recognise the broad fact that workmen will not submit to this more rigid standardisation and will not work extra hard, unless they receive extra pay for doing it.'6This makes it clear that, though part of the larger output, or increased speed, is got by improved arrangements or methods of work that need not tax the workers, powers, part of it does involve their working "extra hard."Not only a better direction but a larger amount of energy is required of them, with an increase of wear and tear and of fatigue.It is an unsettled point of great importance, how much of the enlarged output can be imputed to the former, how much to the latter.Even more important is the allusion in the passage just quoted to 'the rigid standardisation' to which workmen will not submit, unless they are well paid to do so.For this rigid standardisation of the work involves a corresponding mechanisation of the workmen.Men who formerly exercised a certain amount of personal choice in the details of their work, as regards action and time, must abandon this freedom and follow exactly the movements prescribed to them by the taskmaster with a chart and a stop-watch.He will prescribe the particular task for each, the tool he shall use, the way he shall use it, the intervals of work and rest, and will take close note of every failure to conform.The liberty, initiative, judgment, and responsibility of the individual workman are reduced to a minimum.
This is admitted by the advocates of Scientific Management, though in a qualified manner.One of the elements of success is said to be: 'An almost equal division of the work and responsibility between the workman and the management.All day long the management work almost side by side with the men, helping, encouraging and smoothing the way for them, while in the past they stood on one side, gave the men but little help, and threw on to them the entire responsibility as to methods, implements, speed, and harmonious cooperation.'7 But in the broader discussion of the difference between the ordinary business method and Scientific Management, in relation to the numerous little problems that arise in every kind of work, we are told that, 'the underlying philosophy of this (ordinary) management necessarily leaves the solution of all these problems in the hands of each individual workman, while the philosophy of Scientific Management places their solution in the hands of the management.'8 Elsewhere9 it is stated that Scientific Management 'involves the establishment of many rules, laws, and formulae which replace the judgment of the individual workman.'
§4.Now in endeavouring to apply to this policy of Scientific Management a standard of human welfare, we are confronted by three questions:
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(1) What is the effect of this policy upon the human costs of labour?
