Efficiency Methods
An Introduction to Scientific Management

REMUNERATION point of primary importance to the worker, and therefore the one which affects chiefly his attitude towards the changes made in management. It should have become clear gradually during the discussion that there are two main questions which can be the subject of adjustment and bargaining : the average day wage which is the basis from which calculations are made, and the percentage increase which the bonus system arranges to give over this basis wage. It is on these questions that the scientific manager has to encounter Trade Unions, where labour is organized. The subject will be further considered in chap. xv. In the last chapter we showed somewhat fully that the actual remuneration will always be affected by the exact fixing of the output for the standard task, and that the fixing cannot be done with scientific accuracy in so far as it has to strike a mean between the best, and the average untrained, man. Besides the bonus paid to the individual, it is quite customary under the new methods to pay a small bonus to the man in charge of the work of a group—-the gang boss, or the speed-boss, among Taylor s functional foremen—for each man in his group who completes his task. He is paid this as a teacher, not as a driver. He is also paid an extra bonus if all the workers whom he directs obtain their bonus. At the Brighton Mills 1 the gang-boss in charge of twelve men receives six cents a day for every man who gets a bonus, but it is increased to 1 Mr. Brandeis’ Brief, p. 57. Record of Evidence.