It sometimes happens after periods of financial depression, or as a result of special conditions, that it is feasible to reduce the pay of a good many men on the work. This should always be done with great care and after an intimate knowledge has been obtained of the personalities of the men affected. As a general thing, if you cut down a man's pay 10 per cent, you will cut down the work 20 per cent, at least for a time; and it frequently happens that after such a pay reduction, small, petty depredations on the work are committed. Articles get stolen; machinery is damaged by "sore heads." It is usually unwise to reduce the pay of a few men. As a general policy, where a small percentage of the working force is to be affected, it is better to discharge a few men outright, and endeavor by economic methods to increase the output of the others.
Differential pay is a prolific source of trouble, and it is very common. By this is meant the payment to different men of different rates for the performance of the same work. The men who obtain the less pay think that their pay ought to be raised; and the man who gets the most pay can in no probability appreciate the fact that he may be over-paid. Rather than cut his pay down, it is well, if possible, to put him at some other class of work.
It is often necessary for economical reasons to place men who have been paid by the month, upon an hourly basis; and even when by this they average rather more than they formerly received, it usually causes discontent. Any man likes to know how he is coming out at the end of the month regardless of the weather, and it is an additional source of anxiety to him not to know what his pay envelope will contain. When he keeps his own record of the hours worked, he is likely to disagree with the time-keeper, and this can lead to a good deal of disaffection and dissatisfaction.
A frequent cause of disaffection on work is due to the habit too often indulged in by time-keepers, of gossiping with the men. The time-keeper and the storekeeper necessarily come into contact with a very large percentage of the men every day; and if the time-keeper particularly be disposed to gossip, he has abundant opportunity to gratify his desire, and can produce a great deal of trouble. For this reason the general character of the time-keeper should be carefully scrutinized before employing him; and he should be cautious, when making his rounds, to confine himself strictly to business. If the men on the job know as much about the work as the General Manager, if they know all the ins and outs and ups and downs of the contract, they necessarily discuss it among themselves, and a great deal of restlessness is produced, which is very difficult to stamp out, because, by the time it has reached a pronounced stage, the men have learned so much about the politics, as it were, of the job, as to interfere with the discipline.
If there be dissensions at headquarters, if the parties that control the work are at war, and if the methods and performance of the manager or superintendent be not absolutely satisfactory to every one of the officials, nothing can be worse than to let a suspicion of this matter get around among the men. How a general manager or superintendent can prevent this, if an officer be disposed to talk, is a problem that no attempt will here be made to solve. In reorganization, such a condition is one for which the manager should be continually on the alert, and he is advised to be suspicious of the time-keeper and storekeeper.
Labor-Saving Devices Involving Plant. If the men are in a reasonably good state of discipline, it is feasible to make changes in the layout involving special apparatus or plant; and in deciding upon such measures, a question arises as to how much money it is justifiable to spend for a new plant. A piece of work under reorganization is ordinarily a piece of work that is more or less in financial difficulties, and the purchase of plant for the economizing of the work is usually looked upon by the officers as a dangerous move. Particularly is this the case when any changes of this kind turn out to be unsuccessful. A small amount of money wasted on special apparatus is always in sight—at the scrap heap, if nowhere else—whereas a good deal of money wasted in fruitless labor can be easily lost to view.
If the amount of saving on a certain operation by the installation of special material be sufficient to pay for this material in a few weeks, the purchase of the material can be immediately justified, and the cost of the apparatus can be charged as current expenses to be shortly recovered in the economy of the work. Where expensive and heavy machinery is to be installed, however, the matter should be gone into with the greatest care and detail.
A few of the articles which come within the class chargeable to current expenses, are:
1. The use of water jets for increasing the speed of drilling in soft rock.