THE NEW UNIONISM.

Evening Star, Issue 11682, 14 February 1902, Page 2

THE NEW UNIONISM.

No. 11. AN EMPLOYER'S VIEW. TWO HUNDRED WHISKIES IN THREE MINUTES. THE AMERICAN WAY.

TERRIFIC ENERGY OF THE WORKER An ironmaster, during the course of an interview with 'The Times' contributor, gaw the following; as his experience with hi.N men. It places in concise fonn -what Ins been aiwerted by others, and is probably in'some inanstries nn accurate presentation of facts: "What 1 rind in regard to the men who have come under my 'notice is that they have ceased to take any pride in their work, and their only concern is how they can get through it with the least trouble to themselves. The main reason, perhaps?, is to b-? found in the distractions to which they give themselves up. There are districts •when 1 the people seem to care for nothing but betting, football, and drinking. If the Chancellor of the Exchequer would only compel all bookmakers to take out a license and pav a heavy sum for it ho would confer a great' blessing on this country. It is not on?v the ordinary race meetings that, enlace the* attention of'the men. There are little local races r,i.!led ' flapping' meetings, which take, them nil" for the Monday and Tuesday, and generally end by keeping them away for the Tea'ier part if the week. Then there will be from 20,000 to 30,000 people at a football, match, and betting will go on at cvew match. As for the drinking habit, vrra m;iv judge of that bv this little fact. At a certain ship yard 200 men are engaged, and the whistle goes for the starting of work at six o*clock in the morning, the men being allowed three minutes' grace. .(nsf outside the ship yard gate there is a public-house, which must not open until six. and I lie question is how 200 men can b» supplied with a drink of whisky in that short spa.ee of three minutes without their being late for work. It is done in this v.-av" The lundlrod has 200 quarterns of whisky arranged along the counter in readiness. * lustunTly on the stroke of six be throws open, his doors, and the men rush in. Each picks up a quartern, to«ses it down his throat, and then rushes oat again at tite opposite door, having first called out his name, uhich is hurriedly written down. pavincnt for die liquor being made when there is more leisnre. In this way the whole 200 will get their morning '•nip" within the three minutes.

•• Bui betting, football, and drinking are not .ill. One of the. most degrading thing? i:- the penny theatre. Not only are the per-f-alliances themselves open to objection, but the mm are kept there till Tate at night, villi the result that they are late in coming in work in the momiug. A Bank holiday mians that the men are away for three or !'Uir 'lavs, while every village or hamlet hi- its 'feast' or 'wake,' a reminiscence of ■he <I'M hiring: flays. and it is a matter of ■:::.-!t>m that each man. shall attend the feast in the particular placo he comes from, whieh means that he is generally away for a week. Within a radius of five miles of one particuhr works there are ten places where stieh basts are held between the middle of June and the end of August, and as the absence oi y, sinule man may ntean the stoppage of a whole'department* it follows that between the dates mentioned there is nothing but broken work. Every holiday means, too, t hat- instead of starting next day at sis, the work will begin only at 8.30, and then with onlv fortv men out of, say, 600 or 600. though full steam will be up, the engines running, and the dynamos in operation. Wh.it\a loss all this is to a firm or company, and how it tends to send up the cost of' production, you can readily imagine. Then, again, owing to the action of The trade unions in endeavoring unduly to raise wages, furnaces have to be kept or put out of blast, -which otherwise it would Icive paid to work. Jt sometimes happens that it will be better for the ironmaster <-o stop a furnace altogether rather than yield (.. a. demand for increased pay, of which the state of trade will not allow, so that the onlv result of such demand is to throw men out of work. There are firms which dare not accept a really big order, because their doing so would involve the construction or the starting of another furnace or another shop, and 'the trade union leaders would instantly demand an increase of wages for all branches of the trade, or the concession of an eight-hours' day. Thus, however much a. firm might desire to increase the manufacturing capacity of their work, thev must consider very seriously before doing so. As for new methods, the i.nlv wav to get the men to use American appliances is To throw the old machines on ihe scrap heap, and then there will be only the improved processes available. Then, as re 'tads the colliery district*, when trade 's zood get Ae?s" coal than we do -when i rade is bad. Oood trade means that wages will go up, but the men will be content with Earning the same amount as before and ,'m le-s work, thus producing a smaller Miiani-i'v of mal just when more is wanted. -o we "ret the axiom that 'the higher the wages the smaller the supplies.' In the same \.-.iv wfirn trade is b;>.d and wages fall the men will work harder and increase their ..input in order to keep their wages up to he'same point. Alike in ironworks and , nllicrh-s the boys are a source of great , i.-.uhle. Thev meet together, suddenlj reM.lve to have' a day\s holiday, go off, and ;ii. who!.' work must stop in consequence. Ac a colliery in the Nottingham district twenty bovs'who had so acted were prosecuted.' and ten of them were sent to prison for fourteen days in default of paying a fine. Thereupon the whole of the pitmen went on strike, and declared they would not go back to work until the boys had come out of prison. The whole question of getting good, trustworthy boys is, indeed, one of "the most troublesome of problems for employers of labor at the present day. The practical res-ults of the education movement, so far ;l> this question is concerned, are in no wnv commensurate with the expenditure i; ha.-" entailed. Some of the fault, however, must be attributed to the parents, for instances have occurred where men who are making their £3 or £4 a week in an ironworks, or even more, will, instead of bringing up their sons to the same trade, seek for them a situation as clerk in the office, where, though they will not rise above 30s a. week, they will have a more, "respectable' occupation. Some experiences of this kind have led one ironmaster at least to the conviction that the most desirable boys for an ironworks are orphans." UNCLE SAM'S WORKERS.—UNDER TWO FLAGS.

TTip following interesting account of the methods of work pursued in the United Nudes, contributed by a gentleman connected with the management crl ;i largo engineering firm in the NoTth of England, may serve still further to enHghten employers" and employed in this country as to the nul nature of the competition they must ne prepared to face : "Like many other employers, I recently, while in America, tried to get at the bottom of the astonishing manufacturing superiority of that country. The explanation is a simpler matter than one would have thought, and lies chiefly in. first, the really amazing completeness of the technical knowledge and devotion to their work of American employers, and next, in the really terrific energy that the American workman throws into his work. The contrast between the American workman and the English workman is n, useful one to contemplate, :tnd instructive because it is not explained Iw a double dose of original sin in the Englis-hinan. The truth is the best workmen in America are not Americans at all, but Englishmen, Germans, and others, the elite of European working classes, who ipve left Europe because the scope for their energies is so terribly restricted. Undoubtedly' English trade unionism, in putting a • heck upon individual energy, has done much towards driving the better workmen nf England out of the country, and, amongst the chief causes of our industrial decadence this gradual sapping away of our best men must be recognised as one of those causes, and the most serious of its consequences. The question one naturally asked oneself was: How is it that in Pittsburg you find Lancashire and Sheffield men doing two mid three times the work per day that they ilo in their native country? Yon have not pot to the bottom of the thing by putting Ihe whole blame on the obstructiveness of hade pnionism. because, >*» en all is said wd done A trade unionism, per se, is not.

one whit more favorable in America to rapid and large production than it is here. It seems to me that the explanation ia to be found in the splendid handling of their men which American employers show. They have hud to face exactly the same problem of restricted output that our employers had tt> face. American strikes hare been as extensive, as serious, and as damaging as our own. But two things show very clearly. First, American employers have displayed a far higher degree of capacity for mutual assistance and organisation, and next, a greater willingness to encourage their men to share in the benefits and profit* of improved methods and machinery. The mutual power of combination has rendered their front a more formidable one to the purely obstructive tactics of nnion warfare, while their ingenuity in devising method* by which, while keeping within the union rules, they encourage their men to increased production, is gradually robbing trade uinionism of much of its "anti-employer" spirit, for the simple reason that the employers are making themselves the protagonists of a system which leads to almost indefinite po*«, sibilities for increase of wages, the increase, however, depending entirely upon the skill and energy of the men employed. Piecework is being gradually abandoned in favor of various forms of the preminm system. Under this system men, according to their rating, are employed) at a weekly wage which figures ont at so much per hour. The amount of work repaired as a minimum from each man for this wage is definitely fixed, acd no one remains at that wage who fails to reach this inminram. In this way a far higher standard, both of wage and of skill, is reached. 2Jo one is employed at all who falls below it, and thus one of the main contentions of trade unionism—i.e., a minimum wage—is secured for the men. The point of the premium system lies in the combination \vith this of an undertaking on the part of the employer to let each man who does more than his allotted task in} the time receive, as in one system, a percentage of extra wage for every increase in work, or, as in another, half the time saved. Thus we will suppose a turner, engaged at Is per hour, has to produce twenty articles per hour from his lathe as a minimum. If ho produces less than twenty be ceases to be employed, that being the minimum standard for the rate at which he is engaged. Should he produce forty in the hour he will be paid either 50 per cent, on his wages (or Is 6d for that hour), or half the time saved, which, in the case of double production, is the same. The difference of the two systems woold come out when a man say, four times his allotted task. Suppose he produced eighty in the hour, instead of twenty, half the time "saved on the extra work (or sixty articles) would make double wages, and one-half (or 2s 6d) in the latter system; whereas, by the former system, a man can never earn more than twice the agreed wage. In practice there is littie to choose between the two, as it seldom happens that the price of a job is such that it is possible to do much more than double, or one-and-a-half times, the task ovet the agreed one. While in Pittsburg, I went closely into the working of this system in one of the largest and- most important electrical engineering establishments in the world. In the actual week's wages sheet* whiAlinspectecl-tterewereoveT 1,000 men who had earned premiums. . The preminm s varied from 25 per cent to about 100 per cent, over tie wages, and an examination of almost the whole of the premium tickets revealed the fact that the vast majority of thone who had earned high premiums were English workmen from the Manchester and Sheffield districts.

A system such as this, which gives such a splendid scope to individual energy, while ot the same time serving the masters' interests by a notable lowering of the cost of proctoction, is or* which has conrawteded itself very strongly in America; and the almost .universality of its adoption has rendered any effective protest on the part of trade unionism impossible, even had the unionists been atsrious to protest very vigorously. To work this system satisfactory the rate of pay and the standard of work per hour must be agreed upon for some considerable period of years, in order that an opportunity may be given to tho men for getting the full benefit of their increased skilL As a rule, the period is fixed for two or more years, audi has not to be varied by the masters except on the introduction of new machinery to do tho work. On the introduction of such rww machinery a, new rate is agreed, and ah.ay.s without friction. the men knowii-'i perfectly well that, whatever the agreed rale, they will soon get skilful enough in tl:;i 1:-.-' of the machine to £o beyond the alii,r;eil margin. Of course, it must not be if i .(ittt.i that in America the srsrplus snp].'v of labor is not so great as hCM. arid ccllsequel 41 y the men have fewer inacceii'vats to insist upon unnecessary hands bi''-u-j; Mil ployed or jobs being sJowed 6own for fear of throwing eomracjes out of work. And in this, perhaps, may be found the explanation of the American employer's freedom to put an indefinite number of automatic machines under the supervision of a single man. Jn one shop, not far from New York, I saw fifteen automatic screw-making machines in charge of a tool-maker and a boy. Surface-grinders, in the'same way, are often put into gangs of ten, and I have heard of as many as fifteen being ran by a single maebiE« minder. As far «s the labor aspect of imfystrialism is concerned, the superiority of America, I think, lies probably in Ibe threks things I have mentioned — viz., (1) the technical knowledge and organising power of the employers; (2) the system by which men and masters share in clieapened processes and increased skill on the part of the workman; and (3) the freedom of the masters to employ automatic machineiy without superfious supervising men. To return to an English shop after seeing shops such as these, and to see a group of forty surface-grinders in the charge of twenty men, all standing idly watching the machine work, having literally nothing to do for 90 per cent, of their time, is a spectacle that sickens and angers one; ami it is a wondter how Englishmen can find it consistent with their dignity as men to insist on drawing pay for work, when practically the whole time they arc mere spectators. As far as the individual merits of American aid English workmen aie concerned, 1 was not able to discover any greater standard of skill in America than in England. As I have said, a very large proportion of the best workmen are English and Germans; but undoubtedly the individual efficiency ii higher on account of the personal anxiety of each man to do tie best for himself. There is a superiority, but it is one that lies more in the general moral than in any greater techcdeal skill or mechanical knowledge. The degree to which laborsaving appliances are developed on the grand scale is, of course, extraordinary. It is little wonder that the Steel Trust makes such profits when one reflects, as recently pointed out by Mr J. Lawrence, M.P., at Newport, that manufactnrers are paying to-day in. Pittsbog individual wage* twice as high as are.paid in this country u> their men, and in spite of this the steel costs them per ton half the sum in wages it costs in England. The great sheet Bteel rolling shed of the Homestead Works offers a sight almost uncanny io its way. Two men working a Westrnghoase electric apparatus will draw out white-hot ingots from the furnace awl deposit them in the jaws of the rollers, two others manipulate the rollers, reducing the ingot by successive squeedngs to a sheet many ljm-»lreds of feet in length; a couple of men at either aide of the rollers sprinfcle some kind of composition on to the gradually cooling steel; and a sever.th manipulate)! the machinery that transfers the long steel sheet from the carrying mechanism behind the rollers to the "cooling ground at the side. Speaking from memory, I cannot hi sure as to the exact number of men employed. My recollection is that it was not above seven. It may possibly have been nine. In any case the proportion of men to the amount and importance of the work done was extraordinarily small. It was the same in every shed ere went to—vast buildings with furnaces down tho middle, or rolling mills with hardily a man to be seen, although all in full work. Parallel to this willingness* on the part of the American employer to spend SwlMft any money io. iwpwvea vmitmqf*

tad baiMmgs, if any saying in production is assured by it, there is in almost every important American shop to earceedingry complete and expensive system of keeping the most minute check on the cost of almost every single thing done. The expense of such a department is considerable, as it involves an inspector or clerk m every department, and a staff for the general totalling and analysing of the returns, say a clerk to every fifty men employed! in the factory. Thus, on a wagessheet of £150,000 a year, the costing department may ran to £4O per week. It is found, bowver, that the money is well invested. It gives the most efficient check upon the cost of production; defective work is immediately discovered, the cause of the defect is accounted for, and everyone concerned from the chief manager to the foreman's assistants, is put on hw mettle to make every week's or month's showing an improvement on its predecessor. Besides this the relations between innumerable tool-making firms and engineering firms are close and intimate; so that improvements in tools, all with a view to reducing cost arjd improving production, Is a process that is daily going forward, while in every big engineering shop a large proportion of the tools in use are specially designed for the standard jobs tbey are engaged on. (To be continued.) [The previous reprints from the London •Times' were published in our issues of January 22, 24. 25, 28, and February 1, 7. 10, 11, 12, 13.]