Efficiency Methods
An Introduction to Scientific Management

i66 EFFICIENCY METHODS much enthusiasm, on scientific management, and an article of his in Machinery, vol. xix., has been reprinted in the C. B. Thompson Collection. In this we find: It is undeniable that Unions are necessary for the welfare of workmen, and that without organized effort it would be difficult for them to maintain satisfactory wages and conditions of employment in the face of the tendency of capital to combine into trusts and associations. If scientific management is incompatible with Labour Unions, workmen cannot afford to accept it.” It is not true that individual bargaining is essential to the methods. “We can still have agreements with regard to minimum wage, hours of labour, conditions of employment, and many other things which affect the welfare of the worker. The Unions, however, must stop short of making any requirements with regard to methods of work, or quantity of output, or maximum wages paid, or premiums given, because such things are not proper subjects of discussion between the Unions and the employer.” The range of subjects “ proper for discussion ” in this way has tended on the whole to increase rather than decrease, where Unions are strong; and one would expect Mr. Cardullo to include at least premiums among them, when he indicates, after the passage first quoted, that if there were no Unions the benefits due to increased efficiency might be entirely appropriated by capital! He shows some