Almost all of the work of this shop had been done on piece work for several years.As was usual then, and in fact as is still usual in most of the shops in this country, the shop was really run by the workmen, and not by the bosses.The workmen together had carefully planned just how fast each job should be done, and they had set a pace for each machine throughout the shop, which was limited to about one-third of a good day's work.Every new workman who came into the shop was told at once by the other men exactly how much of each kind of work he was to do, and unless he obeyed these instructions he was sure before long to be driven out of the place by the men.
As soon as the writer was made gang-boss, one after another of the men came to him and talked somewhat as follows:
"Now, Fred, we're very glad to see that you've been made gang-boss.You know the game all right, and we're sure that you're not likely to be a piecework hog.You come along with us, and everything will be all right, but if you try breaking any of these rates you can be mighty sure that we'll throw you over the fence."The writer told them plainly that he was now working on the side of the management, and that he proposed to do whatever he could to get a fair day's work out of the lathes.This immediately started a war; in most cases a friendly war, because the men who were under him were his personal friends, but none the less a war, which as time went on grew more and more bitter.The writer used every expedient to make them do a fair day's work, such as discharging or lowering the wages of the more stubborn men who refused to make any improvement, and such as lowering the piece-work price, hiring green men, and personally teaching them how to do the work, with the promise from them that when they had learned how, they would then do a fair day's work.While the men constantly brought such pressure to bear (both inside and outside the works) upon all those who started to increase their output that they were finally compelled to do about as the rest did, or else quit.No one who has not had this experience can have an idea of the bitterness which is gradually developed in such a struggle.In a war of this kind the workmen have one expedient which is usually effective.They use their ingenuity to contrive various ways in which the machines which they are running are broken or damaged -- apparently by accident, or in the regular course of work -- and this they always lay at the door of the foreman, who has forced them to drive the machine so hard that it is overstrained and is being ruined.And there are few foremen indeed who are able to stand up against the combined pressure of all of the men in the shop.In this case the problem was complicated by the fact that the shop ran both day and night.
The writer had two advantages, however, which are not possessed by the ordinary foreman, and these came, curiously enough, from the fact that he was not the son of a working man.
First , owing to the fact that he happened not to be of working parents, the owners of the company believed that he had the interest of the works more at heart than the other workmen, and they therefore had more confidence in his word than they did in that of the machinists who were under him.So that, when the machinists reported to the Superintendent that the machines were being smashed up because an incompetent foreman was overstraining them, the Superintendent accepted the word of the writer when he said that these men were deliberately breaking their machines as a part of the piece-work war which was going on, and he also allowed the writer to make the only effective answer to this Vandalism on the part of the men, namely: "There will be no more accidents to the machines in this shop.If any part of a machine is broken the man in charge of it must pay at least a part of the cost of its repair, and the fines collected in this way will all be handed over to the mutual beneficial association to help care for sick workmen." This soon stopped the wilful breaking of machines.
Second.If the writer had been one of the workmen, and had lived where they lived, they would have brought such social pressure to bear upon him that it would have been impossible to have stood out against them.He would have been called "scab" and other foul names every time he appeared on the street, his wife would have been abused, and his children would have been stoned.Once or twice he was begged by some of his friends among the workmen not to walk home, about two and a half miles along the lonely path by the side of the railway.He was told that if he continued to do this it would be at the risk of his life.In all such cases, however, a display of timidity is apt to increase rather than diminish the risk, so the writer told these men to say to the other men in the shop that he proposed to walk home every night right up that railway track; that he never had carried and never would carry any weapon of any kind, and that they could shoot and be d -- -- -.
After about three years of this kind of struggling, the output of the machines had been materially increased, in many cases doubled, and as a result the writer had been promoted from one gang-boss-ship to another until he became foreman of the shop.For any right-minded man, however, this success is in no sense a recompense for the bitter relations which he is forced to maintain with all of those around him.Life which is one continuous struggle with other men is hardly worth living.His workman friends came to him continually and asked him, in a personal, friendly way, whether he would advise them, for their own best interest, to turn out more work.And, as a truthful man, he had to tell them that if he were in their place he would fight against turning out any more work, just as they were doing, because under the piecework system they would be allowed to earn no more wages than they had been earning, and yet they would be made to work harder.
