One after another of the new men who were started singly on this job
were either persuaded or intimidated into giving it up. In many cases
they were given other work by those interested in preventing piece work,
at wages higher than the ruling wages. In the meantime, however, the
first man who started on the work earned steadily $1.85 per day, and
this object lesson gradually wore out the concerted opposition, which
ceased rather suddenly after about two months. From this time on there
was no difficulty in getting plenty of good men who were anxious to
start on piece work, and the difficulty lay in making with sufficient
rapidity the accurate time study of the elementary operations or "unit
times" which forms the foundation of this kind of piece work.
Throughout the introduction of piece work, when after a thorough time
study a new section of the work was started, one man only was put on
each new job, and not more than one man was allowed to work at it until
he had demonstrated that the task set was a fair one by earning an
average of $1.85 per day. After a few sections of the work had been
started in this way, the complaint on the part of the better workmen was
that they were not allowed to go on to piece work fast enough. It
required about two years to transfer practically all of the yard labor
from day to piece work. And the larger part of the transfer was made
during the last six months of this time.
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