Added to all this is the deadening monotony of the daily round of toil with no variation, no release from the fixed hours, no inducement to do one's best, no chance of getting any extra pay unless by occasional overtime.
Theoretically, day work is the fairest method, because if a man does his best he ought to get the same wages as any other man, no matter what his production may be; but in practice this is impossible, hence one is driven to the conclusion that day work, as it is practised at present, stands condemned, and ought to be limited to such jobs and working conditions where it is impossible to apply other methods.
(b) Piece Work.
Piece work has one great advantage over day work—namely, the worker is paid in exact proportion to his production.
But that is the only advantage. If work could be correctly priced according to the amount which a conscientious average man could do, and that price always held good, piece work would have the additional advantages that both worker and employer would know the conditions were fair, and the worker would work diligently and be paid proportionally to his skill and production.
Under ordinary piece work conditions, however, such an arrangement is impossible, and the objections to piece work are, if anything, greater than the objections to day work, because of the necessary dishonesty on the part of both worker and employer.
The average employer will not believe what an enormous difference there is in the quantity of work which different men are capable of producing. He is under the impression that, within small limits, any man can produce the same amount of work as any other man in a given time. This is entirely wrong. Investigations have proved that some good men can produce three times as much as an average man, the quality of work being quite as good.
Applying this fact to piece work, one sees at once how serious differences may arise. A job is priced at, say, 1s. An average man whose rate is 40s. a week will earn about 50s. a week on that job by diligent work. Then a really first-class man comes along and earns 80s. What follows? "If Smith can earn 80s., it is evident that the price is too high and the other workers are slacking!" That is the natural argument of the employer, and down comes the rate.
Cutting rates is one of the most frequent sources of trouble on piece work, but it cannot be avoided. The worker knows that the rates will be cut, and therefore two methods of defence are open to him: First, he always works slowly on a job until it has been priced. In this way a good price is obtained, a price which enables the slowest worker to earn his wages—and a bit above—easily. Second, the worker takes care not to earn too much. It is arranged between the men how much each ought to take on a certain job, and the arrangement made is carried out. This is, of course, dishonest, but it is necessary.
For suppose a good worker comes on the job and does his best, the price comes down to everybody, and the average man cannot earn his wages. The good man is therefore compelled to be dishonest to his employer or unfair to his fellow-worker. And, again, in piece work all prices are arbitrary. Even if one shop gives a reasonable price, other shops in the same line of business find it out, and put on a lower price in order to reduce works costs and thereby lower prices to customers, which means snatching the trade from the good shop.