2) The piece workers handled on an average 3 56/100 times as many tons
per day as the day workers.
[end footnotes to table 1]
It was clearly understood by each newcomer as he went to work that
unless he was able to average at least $1.85 per day he would have to
make way for another man who could do so. As a result, first-class men
from all over that part of the country, who were in most cases earning
from $1.05 to $1.15 per day, were anxious to try their hands at earning
$1.85 per day. If they succeeded they were naturally contented, and if
they failed they left, sorry that they were unable to maintain the
proper pace, but with no hard feelings either toward the system or the
management. Throughout the time that the writer was there, labor was as
scarce and as difficult to get as it ever has been in the history of
this country, and yet there was always a surplus of first-class men
ready to leave other jobs and try their hand at Bethlehem piece work.
Perhaps the most notable difference between these men and ordinary
piece workers lay in their changed mental attitude toward their
employers and their work, and in the total absence of soldiering on
their part. The ordinary piece worker would have spent a considerable
part of his time in deciding just how much his employer would allow him
to earn without cutting prices and in then trying to come as close as
possible to this figure, while carefully guarding each job so as to
keep the management from finding out how fast it really could be done.
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