(b) Trade-Unions and the Reward System.
The trade-unions must be properly organised to meet the new conditions.
The trained engineers of the unions should be thoroughly up to date in their knowledge of all the branches of the trade. In connection with engineering workshops, they should be acquainted with the latest practice in all kinds of machines and tools, tool steels, methods of cutting, and everything else bearing on the working of metals.
Such a trained engineer is worth a good deal to the union, and he should be paid highly. The saving to the union cannot be adequately calculated. In many cases an exhaustive inquiry into conditions of work would often prevent an expensive strike or would smooth out difficulties that tended towards a strike. Such a man should be paid anything from £500 to £1,000 a year. This sounds a lot, but it is absolutely essential for the unions to be in a position to let the employer see that they know as much about the business as he does—perhaps a bit more—and they cannot get the sort of man they need for less.
The trade-union must also see that time studies are properly made. This will be no part of the union's duty until disputes arise. If there is a general complaint from any shop that time studies are unsatisfactory, the trade-union engineer should be sent to the factory to study one or two representative jobs.
He will do this side by side with the employer's engineer, and he must allow the firm to choose the worker (who would, of course, be a union man), so that there can be no complaint of unfairness and no accusation can be made that the union desires to impose conditions on the employer.
A comparison between the times thus obtained and the firm's standard times will show at once whether the complaint is well founded.
The allowances on the fastest time in order to obtain standard time is a matter more open to arrangement. It is, in fact, one of the most vital matters in connection with the time study system, and one where the most unfairness will take place. But an approximate check may be obtained because the handling times of each element of the job can be totalled and the cutting times totalled, and according to the circumstances of the case the allowances can be arranged.
The relation between reward and standard times is a simple matter. It is only necessary to see that reward when standard efficiency is reached is at least 25 per cent. of the day wage. That is to say, if wages are 20s., the reward when the work reaches standard efficiency should be 5s.; if wages are 30s., reward should be 7s. 6d.; if wages are 40s., it should be 10s.