The daily Nome industrial worker., 1917-02-21
THE EMPLOYMENT MANAGER.

are founded upon the premises that the present system of industry is immutable And the most con- siderate of employment managers for large concerns devote themselves to their work with this idea fixed in their heads.
 What they face then is a very simple problem. They need efficient workers and efficient workers in the sense that their labor shall reach the very highest point of profitabl efficiency.
 The worker accordingly is sub iected to certain tests wherein his labor is made to reach certain standard, founded itself upon the highest of profits possible of ob- taining.
 The extent to which these employ ment managers, and efficiency eX- perts working with them, are carry ing their theories is hardly realized bv the average person who has had no exDerience in modern plants. But 1t is astounding.
 Minute movements are studied by motion picture and checked by stop watch. They are graphed mathema- ticallv and every single superfuous motion is eliminated. Unlike the machine. unfortunately the human being is responsive to external s,'- muN which are unknown in me chanical contrivances. Hence these have to be studied as we'll. Thus the effect of well lighted surroundings, or dark working quarters. good or bod ventilation. pleasurable i'm pulses and the like are studied by modern industrial psychologists who have gone so far as to check the dlf- ference in output due to the wall paintings and the effect Of the colors that immediately surrounded the workers. Experimenters have Introduced music boxes and phono- graphs to workshops where the noise of machinery could not drown the concord of sweet sounds. and the et- feet of vibration, mechanical noises and the like have all received atten- tion.
 In some instances the output In creased per individual worker fraction of one per cent. but quite enough to make the total produc- 3ion reach a high increase.
 l. is all very elaborate and. all very scientific but it's results, it may well be asserted. have all been more or less questionable The fact IS that modern industry is actual slav- ,4rv-wage slavery and gliding the bonds with welfare work ideas helps but very little.
 The machine in modern industry has removed the delight of the craftsman in the exercise of his creative power. In few trades like that of the printer he can still allow some play to his artistic sense and some freedom to his original creative instinct. But these are gett- ing fewer year by year and today i'll the majority of callings, the worker is machine tender. His work consists in the repetition over and over and over again of certain me shanical acts which in themselves become eventually involuntary, and they can keep up a conversation with a by-stander on subjects wholly remote from the work on hand, showing the complete separation Of the intellect from the muscular movements.
 Such a condition primarily in- duces bodily and later great mental fatigue. This fatigue results in certain toxic developments in the system and the worker eventually breaks down. He is an industrial victim predisposed to wasting or occupational disease and his work begins to deteriorate. He has to be eventually scrapped.
 Long ago when the craftsman la bored and the love of the craft made his toll pleasure much as the ar tist finds pleasure in his work. craftsmen lived to De a able to en- joy a very old age. The weaver who spun rare designs in damask and linen was often practising his