BONUS "ILLUSION"

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 74, 29 March 1932, Page 8

BONUS "ILLUSION"

WOKK NOT CHEAPEE

N.S.W. RAILWAY WORKSHOPS

A LANG CRITICS VIEW

As a rule Labour objects to payment-by-results systems, because they compel the worker to giye too much. But an investigator appointed by the New South Wales Labour Government to report on the railway workshops bonus, finds that the worker gives too little. Instead of the bonus men being superior in output-efficiency to the non-bonus men, the report suggests that the reverse is the case. Some months ago the Premier of New South Wales (Mr. Lang) appointed Mr. W. B. Eogers, who was formerly connected with the Clyde Engineering Works, to conduct a special investigation into the administration of the railways, particularly the workshops. Mr. Eogers's first report deals with the system of bonus payments to employees at the Eveleigh shops and the Clyde wagon locomotive repair shops. EXTRAVAGANT TIME STANDARDS Mr. Eogers said that the Eailways Department claimed that increased output resulting from bonus work cheapened the cost of production. This was an illusion, he said, that rested on the extravagant time standard set. If comparison was made on a reasonable time basis, clay work was cheaper. _ A summary of Mr. Bogers's findings is as follows :— (1) Assessed time standards were set at an absurd and extravagant level. (2) Time recording, on which the accuracy of the whole system depended, was impracticable, and the records were unreliable. •. (3) Large sums of money were paid out annually on such unreliable records. (4) Bonus was paid on unsatisfactory work as a regular practice. (5) No cheek or audit was made on any phase of the system, which was open to fraud and manipulation in every direction. The investigator, continuing, said that slackness in supervising, recording, and accounting made the system as a basis for paying out large sums of money a breach of public trust and an imposition on the taxpayer. ' / During the year ended 30th June last, he said, £44,861 was paid out under the system in the mechanical department alone. Bonus systems seemed to have been adopted as a short cut to bigger output, and as an alternative to proper supervision. There was no such short cut. ' ', "The majority of the workmen," continued the report, " will not bonus. The sum is accepted in secret, and to meet such cases, the Commissioners arrange to pay it surreptitiously. This is tantamount to bribing a man to do what he is paid to do, and must weaken discipline and bring the administration into "contempt in the eyes of the large number of employees who will not accept bonus, and despise those who do. "The department contends that if bonus is abolished the output will drop. This is entirely a matter of proper supervision. "The department has the right to demand a fair day's work, .and no union can deny this right. A union would not bring ridicule upon itself by asking that its members should not do more than one hour's' work in five, a condition which, conversely, the department regards as highly^ satisfactory; ; ONE DAY'S WORK, THREE DAYS' PAY. "The bonus system has been in operation at Eveleigh since. September^ 1918, and at Clyde since 1920. An assessing officer, after trial, fixes the time standard for each bonus job. If the workman beats this time, the time he saves is valued according to the wage he is paid, and half the saving is paid him as bonus. Once the time standard is set it cannot be altered unless other methods of doing the job are evolved. Certain jobs are specified as bonus jobs. Men only earn bonus when when working on such jobs. It becomes of vital importance to accurately record when men go on and off bonus work. If this is not done' employees can adjust work to earn large bonus. "If time assessment is reasonably efficient, it would be difficult for men ordinarily to beat it by over 30 per cent. It is common for men to do in one and a half or two hours work they are allowed 10 hours to perform. Mr. Eogers quotes 794 cases and (over six pay periods) in which men did in less than four hours work they were allowed 10 hours to do. In 49 cases this time was made on bonus plans introduced during the last two years. Men are frequently.paid three days' pay; for ■one day's work under this system."