Efficiency Methods
An Introduction to Scientific Management

THE FOREMEN 57 / gang-boss and speed-boss, as his scope has been thus narrowed and intensified.1 Another modification is that the rather difficult work of the disciplinarian should be done by a superin- tendent with a good deal of weight and authority, whose decision cannot be discussed or resented by the bosses of the shop. This is perhaps the best place to suggest that one very grave difficulty con- nected with the ordinary foreman’s position and authority in works would disappear to a large extent with any plan for dividing his work among functional foremen. That is the undue influence he can have over a workman’s position or career, and still more the undue influence he may have when women are under him instead of men. He is in a situation with a great temptation to favouritism or persecution, and many abuses may creep in. If the key to getting on in works is by “ standing well with the foreman,” the methods resorted to occasionally for the purpose, as also the foreman’s methods of dealing with people who do not stand well with him, are aspects of the foreman’s work that touch not only industrial efficiency, but deeper social problems. To return to other modifications of foremen’s work. Mr. A. H. Church, in an article on the sub- ject, advocates keeping a single general foreman over a section of workers, but removing a good deal of his old work from him—particularly the order of work and the rate-fixing. This is somewhat more after the idea of Mr. Emerson’s line-and-staff organiza- 1 See Duncan, “ Industrial Management,” p. 192.