At first workmen cannot see why, if they do twice as much work
as they have done, they should not receive twice the wages. When the
matter is properly explained to them and they have time to think it
over, they will see that in most cases the increase in output is quite
as much due to the improved appliances and methods, to the maintenance
of standards and to the great help which they receive from the men over
them as to their own harder work. They will realize that the company
must pay for the introduction of the improved system, which costs
thousands of dollars, and also the salaries of the additional foremen
and of the clerks, etc., in the planning room as well as tool room and
other expenses and that, in addition, the company is entitled to an
increased profit quite as much as the men are. All but a few of them
will come to understand in a general way that under the new order of
things they are cooperating with their employers to make as great a
saving as possible and that they will receive permanently their fair
share of this gain.
Then after the men acquiesce in the new order of things and are willing
to do their part toward cheapening production, it will take time for
them to change from their old easy-going ways to a higher rate of speed,
and to learn to stay steadily at their work, think ahead and make every
minute count. A certain percentage of them, with the best of intentions,
will fail in this and find that they have no place in the new
organization, while still others, and among them some of the best
workers who are, however, either stupid or stubborn, can never be made
to see that the new system is as good as the old; and these, too, must
drop out.
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