But in dealing with the heavier materials the work was tiring, and more tiring under the new system than before, as the number of pieces lifted had been increased. It was said while there was every intention of fairness on the part of the management in arranging the work; it was sometimes not evenly distributed in slack times, the same girls being laid off repeatedly and the same girls chosen to work repeatedly instead of in alternation.
In the further processes of folding, some of the work and the lifting to the piles of the sheer, book-folded stuff is light, but requires great deftness; other parts of the work and the lifting to the piles are heavier.[ [53]] The wage before the bonus was introduced was $7.50 a week, and with the bonus rose to $11 a week, in full time. As with the inspectors, the work was now brought to the folders, and the hours were shortened by 45 minutes. Here there was great variation in the account of the system.
One of the folders on light work, a wonderfully skilful young woman, who had folded 155 pieces a day before, and now folded 887, could run far beyond her task without exhaustion and earn as much as $15 a week. She and some of the expert workers paused in the middle of the morning for 10 or 15 minutes' rest and ate some fruit or other light refreshment, and sometimes took another such rest in the afternoon.
Another strong worker, employed on heavy material, though she liked the bonus system, and said "it couldn't be better," had remained at work at about the same wages as before, because she was a little ahead of the others before and earned $8 a week; and now, as there was hardly more than enough of her kind of work to occupy her for more than four days a week, she still earned about $8.
One folder was made very nervous by a constant fear that she would not earn her bonus. She always did complete the necessary amount; but when the system was first introduced, she had been sleepless night after night. Though this sleeplessness had passed away, she still took a nerve tonic to brace her through her work; and this was the case with another folder. The mothers of both these girls urged them to return to week work. But this was of poor quality—odds and ends—and the girls disliked it, and persisted in the new system.
In tying ribbons around the bolts of material, the girls sit at work. Their wages had been $1 a day for tying ribbons around 600 pieces; and now, on a bonus for 1200 pieces, is at times for quick workers, as high as $11. But the ribbon tying was not steady work. It is applied to only some of the material, and the task and bonus here are intermittent. The girls who knot, or run silk threads through the selvages, paste on tinsel ribbon, and wrap are younger than the other workers. Their wages before had been from $5.80 to $6 a week. Now they are in some cases over $8; in others about $7; in others about $6. The work reaches them in better condition than before. They said it was more interesting, and the chief difficulty was in lifting occasionally a greater number of heavy pieces in piling. Seats were provided for these workers except for those at tinselling; and if they found they were able to complete the task easily, they sat at the work. At the heavier work, the girl at yarding, the folder, knotter, and ticketer, all worked tandem, and if the girl at yarding loses her bonus, all the girls lose the bonus.
In the last process of stamping tickets and ticketing, the girls work without one superfluous motion, with a deftness very attractive to see; and both here and at book folding justify the claim made by Scientific Management that speed is a function of quality. The wages here had been $6 before, and were now in full time from $9 to $10. As the task before had been combined with various other processes, it was, as in other cases, impossible to determine how much the work of each worker had been increased. The present task was that of ticketing 39 bundles of 5 pieces each hourly, with different rates for different amounts of tickets, and was not considered at all a strain. But at the ticketing connected with the adding machines the work was not differentiated so carefully. More of the heavy work came to these ticketers, and the lifting was sometimes too exhausting. But the work was better than in former times, and the wages of from $9 to $10 were thought just, if a higher rate had been added for the heavier work here.
III
All this work described at the tenter hooking, the yarding, the folding, inspection, and ticketing, was of a different character from that carried on under the bonus and task system in a large room where sheets and pillowcases were manufactured. This work afforded the only instance of an application of Scientific Management to the processes involved in the great needle trades and was, on that account, of special interest.
The white cloth is brought on trucks to the girls, who tear it into lengths, in accordance with written orders received with each consignment. They snip the cloth with scissors, place the cut against the edge of an upright knife, set at a convenient height on a bench, and pull the two sides of the cloth so that the knife tears through evenly to the end; then they stamp the material, fold it over, and place it on a truck to be carried to the machine sewer. The weekly wages before the bonus was introduced had been $5.98 and were now with the bonus $6.75, though workers sometimes tore more than the 1190 sheets required by the task and made from $7 to $7.50 by a week's work. The quick workers occasionally stopped for 10 or 12 minutes in the morning and ate a light lunch. The task was severe for the muscles of the hand and forearm, and apt to cause swollen fingers and strained wrists, though the girls bound their wrists to prevent this. All the work was done standing. The loosened starch flying here was annoying, both to the tearers and the girls at the sewing-machines.