Efficiency Methods
An Introduction to Scientific Management

REMUNERATION 129 It is only fair to add that there must be cases where the rate has really been set too high, and where the employer may suffer serious loss if he cannot lower it; and that at times the power of the Trades Union may prevent him from lowering it. At any rate the dissatisfaction of most employers with the piece-rate system generally is obvious. There is yet another fertile source of friction caused by the system. The worker will be at an actual loss in money if there are any hitches in the arrangements which compel him to remain idle because he cannot get on with his job. If not actually stopped, he may be hindered in countless ways ; by tools in bad order, by something unusual about the material, by countless small mishaps. In cases of this kind it is the bad management that prevents him making good earnings, and he is not likely to bear this patiently.1 Indeed, it is so palpable that the output must depend at least as much on the conditions of work as on the worker that one can hardly be surprised at Mr. Harrington Emerson informing the American Society of Mechani- cal Engineers in 1904 that one did not “ buy out- put ” from a worker, and therefore his wages should not be reckoned by output.3 1 This view of piece-rates is well discussed in the Evidence given in favour of Scientific Management, given to the Interstate Commerce Commission, U.S.A., 1910. 2 From " A Rational Basis for Wages,” Trans, of Amer. Soc. of Mechanical Engineers, vol. xxv., p. 868. This is a useful con- tribution to the general philosophy of the subject, though it includes views which are the direct outcome of Mr. Emerson’s special experience and personal idiosyncrasies. These views were not generally acceptable to his hearers at the time. K