(3) It separates absolutely all questions of wage rate from questions of output, shop conditions, or individual excellence.
(4) It fines the management heavily if shop conditions are not maintained so as to realize standard times.
(5) It puts no limit on the ambition or earning power of any man.
(6) Standard times are being constantly corrected. If the standard man cannot average 100 per cent on his schedules, it is evident that some of them are too short and ought to be lengthened. If on the other hand, a new machine tool is introduced, new schedules are drawn up for it, but the worker will not, on that account, make less than he did on the old schedule.
It is too much to expect that any system of paying wages will prevent an outbreak of selfish interests whether of employer or wage earner. There will, however, be a distinct gain if the nature of the disagreement can be made entirely distinct and plain. Clear thinking must precede clear acting, and this description of different wage systems may contribute towards clearer conceptions and more just practice.
To establish a modern wage system, standard times must be determined on a scientific basis, and the rate must not only be equitable as between employer and employe, but, as Mr. Bender has said, "it must hit the men right." Shop conditions must be right and every facility given the workmen to attain standard time or better, including teaching him how to do the work in standard time. The speeder or task setter employed under the day-wage plan must be superseded by the instructor, who, instead of selecting the most speedy worker and basing standard times on his operations, first determines as closely as possible what the time should be, and then teaches his men how to attain that time. Where stop-watch methods foster discontent and breed antagonism, instruction is followed by coöperation. The average man does not object to doing a task in a stated time when he is given the facilities for doing the work that will make that a reasonable time. Add to this the incentive of extra pay for equaling or bettering that time, and his coöperation is insured.
METHODS OF TIME KEEPING
6. Time keeping may be divided into two classes. The first class includes methods of recording the total time that the employe works during a pay-roll period. The second class includes methods of recording the results of the labor of each employe—the quantity produced, expressed in the units adopted by the trade in which he is employed.
BATTERY OF HYDRAULIC PRESSES (3000 AND 4000 TONS CAPACITY) IN HEAVY FORGING SHOP OF THE J. G. BRILL COMPANY, PHILADELPHIA, PENNA.