Shop Management

50 SHOP MANAGEMENT as much work in a day as had been done in the past on an average. Between twelve and thirteen tons of pig-iron per man had been carried from a pile on the ground, up an inclined plank, and loaded on to a gondola car by the average pig-iron handler while working by the day. The men in doing this work had worked in gangs of from five to twenty men. The man selected from one of these gangs to make the first start under the writer’s system was called upon to load on piece work from forty-five to forty- eight tons (2,240 lbs. each) per day. He regarded this task as an entirely fair one, and earned on an average, from the start, SI-85 per day, which was 60 per cent, more than he had been paid by the day. This man happened to be con- siderably lighter than the average good workman at this class of work. He weighed about 130 pounds. He proved, however, to be especially well suited to this job, and was kept at it steadily throughout the time that the writer was in Bethlehem, and some years later was still at the same work. Being the first piece work started in the works, it excited considerable opposition, both on the part of the workmen and of several of the leading men in the town, their opposition being based mainly on the old fallacy that if piece work proved successful a great many men would be thrown out of work, and that thereby not only the workmen but the whole town would suffer. One after another of the new men who were started singly on this job were either persuaded or intimi-