The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1928-12-14
WORKER TELLS
OF SPEED-UP IN
GARMENT trade
System of Piece Work
Reduces Wages

tDY w OFheF Correspondence
When an employer, driven by his
ever increasing greed for more and
larger profits, begins to plan re-
duction of labor costs, the first
thought that strikes him is the in
stallation of piece work. His aims
are to increase production without
enlarging the plant, to speed up the
work so that each operator pro-
duces more for the wages he for
merly received, and to maintain the
same standard of quality. The in
dustrial engineers have devised in
tricate plans by means of which the
last drop of energy can be extracted
from the workers under piece
work scheme.
The first industry to adopt piece
work rates was the metal industry.
The plan won favor among employ
ers in other fields until now it has
been established in great many
industries. 1t is now being intro
duced in the clothing industry. AL
though the unionized operators
fought against the scheme, the Of
ficials, collaborating with the larg-
err employers established piece work
in the New York clothing market.
1t constitutes a disgraceful sell-out
and marks new low level in the
degeneracy of the labor misleaders
at the helm of the once powerful
Amalgamated Clothing Workers
Union. Such policy can have only
one result-to further weaken the
union.
Worker Bewildered.
In modern factory the work is
divided into such minute operations
that a worker cannot successfully
argue piece work rates. All he
knows is that he is forever produc-
ing more and earning less. If he
should happen to earn unusually
good pay through extra effort the
price of his operation would be i'm
mediately reduced. At best, the
price is based on the earning power
of the fastest operatives. No allow
ance is made for fatigue, for ma
chine breakdowns, and for lack of
work caused by delays in other de-
partments of the eshop.
Under a piece work plan, the
bosses are always afraid they are
not getting the highest standard of
work and an army of inspectors are
distributed to keep a close watch. on
the quality of the work. This is an
expense which is figured into the
labor costs and which further re-
duces the piece work rates-the op-
orator pays for those inspectors in
the final analysis. Carrying the
work to and from the central in
spection stations entails good deal
of time, which the workers lose, and
the complicated records necessitated
By the system plaques the workers,
who not only lose a great deal of
time keeping the records, but are
subject to material loses from the
inevitable loss of coupons.
Fake Bonus ran.
Under the pretext of obtaining a
uniform flow of work throughout
the shop, eliminating congestion at
certain points resulting in what is
known as bottleneck condition,
workers are continually shifted
from one operation to another.
Every time an operator is shifted,
he finds himself worse off, earning
less, working harder, and more at
a disadvantage.
The trump card of the whole vi
cious system is the Group Bonus
plan. This not only tends to stir up
luminosity between the workers,
since the faster worker suffers from
the lesser production of the slower
worker, but it creates constant
spying and jealous atmosphere in
the shop which tends to dis-unite
the workers.
Wherever the piece work system
is installed, the workers become
dissatisfied, every resulting speed
up attempt, every cut in the pay
envelope, finds them at greater odds
with the bosses and with those who
forced this system upon them.
NORMAN Sill REP