Scientific
management, also known as “Taylorism” often gets a bad wrap due
to the amount and speed of work that must be done by a worker. What
most don’t realize is that Taylorism was and is an integral method
of how the country, as a whole, advanced and how it will continue to
advance in the future. The idea of combining science and business
management sparked the theory of Taylorism and led to an increase in
factory output, but consequently led to a more undesirable workplace
for the men working there. Through the careful analysis of factory
workers in the turn of the 20th century, economic
efficiency would improve significantly. Although the actual idea of
Taylorism was deemed obsolete, modern manufacturing and economic
efficiency is highly influenced by the themes and ideas presented in
scientific management.
Frederick W. Taylor
introduced the idea of applying science into business management in
the late 1880’s. Taylor, a mechanical engineer was determined to
find a way to improve industrial efficiency and productivity.1
According to Taylor, this system would best determine the optimum
way a worker could complete his job. This was accomplished by
breaking down every job into individual motions, timing the movements
and analysis each of the motions involved. He would then eliminate
the unnecessary movements to create an almost ‘machine-like’
worker.2
This made the worker more productive and efficient then if the
system was not implemented. This system was theorized during a time
where the goal of industry was to increase output, decrease waste and
using pre-determined ideas of what a job should consist of. Due to
the increase in large factories and an immense amount of workers
willing to do anything to make money for their families, mass
production was beginning to become more popular. Taylor used
incentives for the workers to follow through with this system; the
more products that one produces the greater their pay. This led to
workers nearly killing themselves in order to produce as much as they
could so that they would get paid more and would keep their jobs over
other workers, due to the standard speed of work set by the system.
The main goal that Taylorism implemented was that the workers
compensation directly correlated to their output and productivity.
His plans usually used piece rates, where the workers are paid in
fixed rates for each product or action they performed, independent of
the time it took them.3
Although this is not the exact system used, if a worker produced a
slightly lower amount of product in the same time period as another,
the worker with less product would receive less pay, though the pay
was not good to begin with. Taylor believed that there were workers
that showed greater intelligence and talent then others, but did not
put much effort into rewarding them more than others. He did however
advocate breaks and greater pay for those workers and have a more
condescending view of the less talented workers.4
Taylorism
essentially turned workers of the time into “drones” that would
perform a repetitive task all day, not allowing for mistakes or rest.
Taylor believed that workers should take their work as seriously as
possible and do as best as possible to complete their job. In his
book written in 1911, The Principles of Scientific Management,
Taylor relates a workers job to baseball, which is a popular past
time of the era. He states,
“Whenever
an American workman plays baseball, it is safe to say that he strains
every nerve to assure victory for his side. He does the very best to
make the largest possible number of runs. The universal sentiment is
so strong that any man who fails to give out all there is in him in
sport is branded as a quitter…”
He goes on to say
that if the worker comes to work the next day, he tries to do “as
little as he safely can.”5
This shows that Taylor believed workers, by pacing themselves or
taking breaks in order to recuperate was pure laziness and nothing
more. Scientific management sought to end this and make workers work
as hard as they can at their job, which consequentially caused
problems for the workers.
Taylorism, as seen
by the working class was dehumanizing in everyway. It did not leave
room for breaks if they became tired or sick, and treated them as
though they were machines controlled by a higher intelligence,
management. It does not leave room for individual workers preferences
or any room for initiative, which forces workers to remain at the
same level of hard labor without taking talent into consideration.
In whole this caused a loss of skill for the workers at the job by
creating autonomy at the level of the worker. The repetitive motions
of often would result in repetitive motion disorders (RMDs), which
include tendonitis, carpal tunnel, and other muscle disorders. These
are characterized by pain, numbness and swelling of the joints.
These factors are what demotivate workers from doing this kind of
work and causes unrest in the workers populations. Strikes such as
the strike at the Watertown Arsenal ensued against taylorism and a
set wage schedule instead of a piece rate.6
Views like these led to workers wanting to unionize and the eventual
failure of the scientific management system, but not of its general
concepts.
Fordism arouse from
the general ideas of Taylorism and was meant to increase mass
production at the time by utilizing unskilled workers on assembly
lines. Journalist
Jonathan Tolliday
describes Fordism as "a
model of economic expansion and technological progress based on mass
production: the manufacture of standardized products in huge volumes
using special purpose machinery and unskilled labor"7
The themes between
Fordism and Taylorism were very similar except Formisms creator,
Henry Ford, sought to pay the workers higher living wages in order to
provide incentives to do this kind of factory work. The system meant
to increase means of mass production while not destroying the bridges
made between the workers producing the products.
Taylorism and
Fordism both generally overworked the workers employed by the
compainies implementing the system and were thus seen as ‘bad’ or
unfair means of work. But in reality it has led to the United States
industrial dominance and has assisted in war efforts of the time.
During World War II, products such as weapons or gear needed to be
rapidly produced in order to fulfill the needs of war. With the
demand for the products at the time, factories that produced these
items needed to increase their output tenfold. They used mass
production and assembly lines in order to supply the needed product.8
The workforce, being diminished by wartime, called upon women and
workers who were undesired as soldiers to work at the factories while
the men were at war. Although this will cause problems in and of
itself, this system during wartime did allow for the United States to
produce the necessary product needed and could be said to have lent a
hand in the winning of the Allied Forces.
The
efficiency at which these systems forced the workers to operate at is
a large reason why the United States is a dominant industrial power.
Although it did cause problems for the workers, it did help the
country as a whole. Taylorism was focused working class, which made
up a large part of the population and more particularly on factory
workers. The ideals that Frederick Taylor had for managing a
business did not keep the workers health and living standards in
mind, rather focused on the improvement of efficiency and output for
the company. Taylorism was severely detrimental to factory workers,
but the working class needed a way to make money, so they couldn’t
complain or quit. Although scientific management systems like
Taylorism or Fordism did not take the well being of workers into
consideration, it helped shaped the country into the industrial
powerhouse it is today.
1
“Taylor, Frederick, Expert in Efficiency,
Dies". New
York Times. March 22,
1915. Retrieved March 14, 2008.
2
Curley, Robert. “Taylorism”. Encyclopedia Britannica.
April 29, 2009.
3
"The
piece work principle in agriculture". Journal
of the Statistical Society of London 28:
29–31. 1865.
4
Taylor, Frederick Winslow, The
Principles of Scientific Management,
New York, NY. 1911. pp. 13–29
,59, 95
6
“Arsenal Mechanics Strike,” The New York Times. August
7,1918.
7
Tolliday, Steven & Zeitlin, Jonathan. The
Automobile Industry and its Workers: Between Fordism and
Flexibility, St.Martin's Press (New
York: 1987) pp. 1-2.
8
Tassava, Christopher. "The American Economy
during World War II". EH.Net Encyclopedia, edited by Robert
Whaples. February 10, 2008.
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