Efficiency Methods
An Introduction to Scientific Management

128 EFFICIENCY METHODS wage, they feel that the rate was fixed too high—as is extremely likely, when it is estimated by guess- work, and with rather insufficient knowledge. They then proceed to “ cut ” it, i.e., lower it. In conse- quence the worker has to work harder, in order to obtain an average week’s wages, than he did before ; and the chance of high wages has dis- appeared. If, on the other hand, the piece-rate has been fixed too low, the employer will not be in a hurry to alter it unless some force, expressing the workman’s discontent, can be brought to bear on him. Therefore the phenomenon appears which is so incomprehensible to people quite outside industrial matters, that workers on a piece-rate do not try to work as fast as possible. They fear the cutting of the rate as soon as their wages become high. This cutting is, in fact, the simplest and the most dis- heartening kind of unfair “ speeding-up,” making the worker do continually more work for the same wages. There is often a second reason for men not putting forth their best powers. A new piece-rate may be based on the records of one of the quickest workers. If he exerts himself to the utmost he knows that his weaker brethren will be expected to achieve as much, and may well find their earnings insufficient if they cannot equal his output, while he does not benefit himself at all. Therefore he does not do his best, particularly if he thinks his work is being studied, as an example or “ pace-setter ” ; and the outside public complains of the incomprehensible idleness and slackness of working-men.