Efficiency Methods
An Introduction to Scientific Management

WELFARE WORK 157 generally satisfied. Under scientific management a fortiori it ought to be. But when works suddenly spring up in a new neighbourhood, the housing problem may press for solution by the employers, because there is no one else to solve it. Instances in England, in munition work, have been frequent lately ; and the war has produced a similar situation in America, where mushroom towns have sprung up round hastily developed industries concerned with satisfying the new needs of Europe. Unfortunately in these cases there is no time for deliberation, and the provision may be far from efficient, so that it is to be hoped it need only be temporary. But where the permanent opinion of the worker on the environment created for him has to be considered, it will be. found advisable by managers to devolve a certain amount of the control and administration on the workers themselves. This would certainly prevent such egregious mistakes as providing libraries and lectures for men who were being worked seven days a week for twelve hours a day, as was done at Pittsburgh ;1 and such minor ones as laying out all the plots of ground round the dwelling-houses as if they were parts of a public park, leaving no room for private gardening. The desirability of creating some sort of workmen’s committee extends to the administration of can- teens, rest-rooms, cloak-rooms, etc., for the institutions will certainly not be efficient if they do 1 See Fitch, “ The Steel-Workers of Pittsburgh.”