A CUTE TRICK THWARTED
A Cute Trick Thwarted Senator La Follette Fights a Scheme to "Put the Screws on Labor" The Gallinger "Sweating" Amendment Defeated SENATOR LA FOLLETTE is speaking on the floor of the...
...They voted for "sweating:" Brandegee, Clark (Wyoming), Dillingham, Gallinger, Harding, Lee (Maryland), McGumber, Page, Penrose, Sherman, Smooti Thomas, Wadsworth, Weeks, Works...
...They have always had...
...HERE is a proposition made by the Senator from New Hampshire which is exactly the same thing...
...And in iheis Bulletin they say: "Senator La Follette raised a warning ery against the trap...
...By the quickness of his eye, by the curious thing that is called a coordination of hand and brain, he can make certain motions quicker than can somebody else and he pushes out of employment altogether somewhere from 60 to 80 per cent, of the men who are slower in their motions as a result of this difference of attuning the whole system by nature to the acme of speed which the most proficient can attain...
...but, Mr...
...In that event opponents of these systems in both the House and the Senate would be helpless, for under the rules the conferees' report is not subject to amendment and must be voted on as a whole...
...He rises on the floor of the Senate, the next day, and offers an amendment to the bill which would make it possible to offer a "premium" a "bonus" or "cash reward" to government employees...
...President...
...That is left out of the proposed amendment, but in effect it is precisely the same thing...
...Officers of the American Federation of Labor have characterized the Gallingeb amendment as a "sly parliamentary move...
...Mr...
...His proposal does not contain any suggestion about the "stop watch"—so inhumane and objectionable to right-thinking citizens everywhere, that even Congress could not accept it...
...It is the bonus system which can only be applied when men, driven to the very highest pressure, shall perform a given number of motions within a given space of time and turn out a finished product...
...It is like the limitation of hours which the Supreme Court of the United States has sustained upon the length of time that women can be compelled to serve in any of the industries of the country...
...Enters Gallinger—Gallinger of New Hampshire—Gallinger of the Old Guard...
...I care not what may be used, wheth'er the stop watch be held over the operative or whether men who have the co-ordination of mental, nervous and muscular organization to enable them to win are tempted by a bonus system to strive for the prizes and drive their competitors, their fellow workmen to the breaking-down point...
...MOT SATISFIED with eliminating the * ' waste motions, on top of that, after they have eliminated the waste motions, most of these gentlemen who are striving for profits in their business will offer a bonus to a man who can strive with his associates...
...not only with regard to the hours of labor but with regard to the strain, the tension, the ordeal, the tax to which men and women shall be subjected in performing their daily occupations...
...He said: "The proposition submitted in the amendment of the Senator from New Hampshire is to retain enough of the Senate provision to enable the conferees to fight for the insertion of the ENTIRE Taylor system...
...He bends again perhaps to the level of his feet, and in each of these motions he has lifted the entire weight of his body...
...Now, Mr...
...By that action this proposal to "sweat" laboring men was completely eliminated from the bill...
...it subjects men who are by nature differently organized mentally, physically, and nervously to a strain under which they are broken down...
...I saw at once that if this scientific management system provided a movable platform that rose with the wall as he built it, so that he did not have to bend his body at all, and so that he took the brick off the platform right at the level of his waist, it would be a saving...
...A Cute Trick Thwarted Senator La Follette Fights a Scheme to "Put the Screws on Labor" The Gallinger "Sweating" Amendment Defeated SENATOR LA FOLLETTE is speaking on the floor of the United States Senate...
...Human nature is just the same, whether it be among United States Senators, men engaged in industrial and commercial enterprises, men who work at the bench or at the forge, or men who run engines...
...It is exactly the same proposition whether the stop watch is eliminated or whether the task is fixed by hours or by a day's work...
...IT IS LIKE ALL OTHER QUESTIONS THAT AFFECT LABOR...
...They did not want" any limitation put upon the number of hours that they should be permitted to operate trains...
...THEY TAKE NO ACCOUNT OF THE 80 PER CENT...
...It took hold of my imagination...
...President, it appealed to me that if those motions could be obviated, if they could he eliminated, or if any of the wear and strain the weight of that man's body could be gotten of, it was economy in physical wear and tear and in the cost of production of the thing upon which he was working...
...For $100 a day our experts will teach it to your operatives and to your managers...
...It offers a premium to men who can do that thing...
...In the late hours of the day the accident death rate is always the highest...
...To the eye of a novice the ends of a brick may appear the same...
...President, whether you eliminate the words 'stop watch' from the proposition or not, for, as so well suggested by the Senator from Missouri (Mr...
...There shall be nothing left in disagreement between the Senate and the House on this proposition.' "We will not permit to be put into this bill a line, a word, or a syllable that will give the conferees the opportunity to work out some legislation that shall be framed up by six men and shall come in here in the conference report in a form that has to be accented by the Senate...
...Mr...
...I have no doubt that there are some workmen who desire that this system shall be established...
...A bonus system is based upon what can be done within that period, whether a stop watch be held on the man or whether you say that he shall do Bo much in a given period and forbid the use of the stop watch...
...It has been enunciated by Mr...
...Taylor, as a basic principle of his system, that they take into account only the men who can perform a certain given number of motions within a limited space of time, and the system has NO CONCERN WHATEVER for the 80 per cent, of men who cannot come within that limitation...
...President, the public has some rights in these matters...
...Mr...
...The brick are deposited upon the platform upon which he works...
...I said, 'Here is an economy.' "When a bricklayer takes a brick as they come from the hod of a carrier, ordinarily the process is that he stoops to the level of his feet...
...It makes no difference...
...He is saying • "Mr...
...But a "bonus" system, to Gallinger and his interested friends, would serve the purpose quite as well as the "stop watch" system...
...He seizes it as it comes down...
...President, the term is somewhat offensive...
...PRESIDENT, it is nothing but a 'sweating system.' It drives men to perform a given number of motions within a fixed time...
...President, I understand the author of the Taylor system, in his book, says that he takes no account of the 80 per cent, who cannot come up to the high standards...
...President, when I stood some years ago upon this floor appealing to Members of this body to pass a bill fixing 16 hours as the limit of time that men engaged in conducting the train service of the country should be permitted to work without interruption, there were engineers and conductors and other trainmen who objected to having any limitation put upon the number of hours that they might be permitted to operate a train, because there were a comparatively few who could run a train 36 hours, 40 hours, 50 hours, perhaps 72 hours, and keep awake, keep their faculties concentrated upon their work, and earn a larger sum each mouth...
...MR...
...Every one of these votes was a vote AGAINST THE INTERESTS OF THE LABORING MEN OF THIS COUNTRY...
...The bricklayer knows that he should hold that brick in his hand as he lays it in the wall with one end of it turned from him and the other end turned to him...
...If the Senate were to accept his amendment, inadvertently or otherwise, the way would be open for re-inserting into the bill the entire Taylor system, which had already been rejected by both the House and the Senate...
...He tosses the brick in trie air...
...He lays it in the wall...
...It has been demonstrated, sir, in investigations which the Supreme Court accepted, that as the hours of labor are increased, the strain and tension upon the men who serve in the great industrial life of this country is intensified, and there results not only the earlier breaking down of these employees but all the concomitant evils that go with such a breakdown, before the crash actually occurs...
...President,.that is remote, that is not here now...
...By adopting this system, which takes account of every movement a man makes and exacts of him the highest possible speed, you will be able to reduce the unit cost of the output of your product 20 per cent.' CAPITAL SEIZES UPON THAT, ysir...
...Those who install this system say to a manufacturer or business man, ' Permit us to install our system...
...While it does make for profit for the man who has the capital invested in the enterprise, and while he may by some equitable arrangement give the men who work under him, by a bonus or other system, some share in the profits which he can make, yet, when he gives it to them by bonus, THAT IS TURNING THE SCREWS DOWN HARDER AND HARDER...
...It makes a revolution...
...He stoops down and picks up a brick...
...I saw, too, that if the bod carrier down on the ground was instructed when he put the bricks into the hod to place them in a certain way in the hod, so that when he dumped the bod on the platform he could save the operation of tossing the brick into the air to bring it right-end-to for the bricklayer who was to biy it on the wall, it would save wear and tear...
...The great body of the trainmen today are in favor of a much greater limitation than the 16-hour limitation which,' after a long struggle, we succeeded in putting upon the hours of train service men...
...The Senate rebuked this subterfuge...
...He showed that when the bill went to conference between representatives of both branches of Congress, that the conferee* could re-establish the stop watch and Taylor systems with the Gallingeb amendment as a starting point...
...OF MEN WHO CANNOT COME UP TO THAT STANDARD...
...It is not the stop watch...
...The public is interested in conserving the labor of this country and in protecting it, not only with regard to the work of women but with regard to the hours of labor of men...
...President, the fixing of the task imposes precisely the same stimulus, precisely the same exaction, precisely the same taxation upon nervous and physical ability without the stop watch that it does if a stop watch is held over the men...
...Then, Mr...
...The great body of the trainmen were in favor of a limitation...
...The Senate yesterday by a very decisive vote declared that it would have none of this sweating system that drives men to the breaking point...
...And how...
...President, it behooves us not to stand for any of the exactions upon labor which would grind the last ounce of work out of the toilers of this country by any process of sweating...
...it has some rights in every question which involves labor generally...
...By making it possible for a mere handful of Senators and Representatives—in conference—to put the Taylor system back into the bill...
...President, let us, as we did on yesterday, by a decisive vote hold to the position taken and say to the House of Representatives, 'We agree with you...
...At the same time Frank J. Weber, general organizer of the Wisconsin State Federation of Labor, is writing into his annual report these words: "So-called scientific management will produce an army of middle aged workers, crippled in mind and body, unable to keep the pace demanded by this system, becoming a burden to society...
...It had already voted against the Taylor sysTem as oppressive to Labor, an3 if mm not going to permit its insertion again into th* Army Appropriation Bill by any sort of triek-ery...
...For instance, sir, it has been found as the result of a carefully systemized investigation of accidents, that in the afterpart of the day, from 3 or 4 o'clock on, when this ordeal of concentration has been sustained for a considerable period of time, when the ability to concentrate is lessened, when the nerve wear and the muscle wear begin to tell upon the individual operatives, accidents increase...
...to the expert they are different...
...The House had previously rejected it...
...We must not be lured by theoretical arguments with respect to the saving resulting in the destruction or in the deterioration of the vital forces of the great body of the toilers of this country.'' THIS exposure of the Gallinger scheme proved effective...
...Any of you who ever watched the processes of the bricklayer noticed that almost always he tosses the brick in the air...
...The ends are not alike...
...but, Mr...
...It does not make a particle of difference, Mr...
...If they can be ultimately so controlled as to protect the great body of the toilers of this country, to make the saving that comes from the elimination of waste motion and at the same time not destroy the lives of the men engaged in the business and insure to them their fair share of the saving in which it all results, then we may be able to accept it...
...It all appealed to me very strongly, Mr...
...it had some rights as to the safety of interstate transportation...
...The Senate said it did not want a system that throws men who by their nature cannot make a certain number of motions within a given space of time on the labor scrap heap to go out and wrestle as best they may—discarded men to support their families...
...You will always find a certain number of men who are more or less selfish and who, by reason of their temperamental organization, are able in any contest to win a higher wage, a bonus for themselves...
...I remember well, Mr...
...Against the wishes of some of the engineers and conductors and trainmen of the country, I remember I, with some others upon this floor, stood here and fought for a limitation upon the hours of service of the men operating the trains of the country...
...Why these protests t An attempt was being made to slip into the Army Appropriation Bill a provision that would permit the government to impose upon its workmen the so-called "Taylor System," "THIS was the situation: On July 25 the United States Senate threw out of the Army Appropriation bill the Taylor "speeding-up system" by the decisive vote of 15 to 36...
...Senator La Follette exposed this b|fc of strategy...
...and when this Taylor system, this scientific management system, was first proposed it made a very strong appeal to me...
...If that were done, under the pernicious system of legislation still prevailing in Congress, the item could not again be removed without defeating the entire bill...
...It had in that particular case some rights in addition to that...
...President, I must say economic propositions have some attractions for me...
...Reed) whenever the bonus system exists there must be a measure of the amount of work that can be performed by men within a given period...
...Note well these names...
...Senator La Follettb said: " 'We will not permit to be put into this bill a line, a word, or a syllable that will give the conferees the opportunity to work out some legislation that will be framed up by six men and shall come in here in the conference report in a form that has to be accepted by the Senate.' " ONLY FIFTEEN Senators voted in favor of this Galltnger amendment...
...He catches it as it comes down...
...that is the time when there is the largest loss of fingers and arms...
...Capital takes no account of what may happen to the men who are thrown out of employment because they cannot make the given number of motions within the limited period...
...President, when I came to see those things and the result of them and came to investigate the matter further, I became convinced that whatever the economies may be we must not adopt them unripened and undeveloped...
...He comes in with a cute scheme...
...BUT WHEN I CAME TO SEE THE EFFECT OF IT UPON THE GREAT MASS OF TOILERS IN THIS COUNTRY I SAW THE VICIOUSNESS OF THE SYSTEM...
Vol. 8 • August 1916 • No. 8
