Fig. 2 is a card recommended for keeping track of piece work earning, and should be used in duplicate, by use of carbon sheet, giving the man a copy and sending the original to the office to be entered in the time book. This will avoid all chance of dispute.

the office, there should be no varying from it in the shops.

If a man is working by the day, and you desire his pay raised, it is necessary to take it up step by step with the officials, and finally it must be approved by the general manager, while by juggling piece work cards or schedules, the piece work inspector can raise the pay of the men higher than was intended.

It will also be found advisable to have the piece work cards checked, both for clerical errors and the interpretation of the schedule, to see if the inspectors are paying what the schedule intends.

After a man starts to work piece work, and it becomes necessary for any reason to give him day work in connection with it, a record should be made of the work performed day work, stating the reason, and this should be turned into the office for the general foreman or master mechanic to look into. Where this rule is enforced, the day work is soon reduced to the minimum. I do not believe in the differential rate system; if the prices once established are not cut, and the men given to understand that they will not be cut unless conditions change by improved machinery or otherwise, so as to make it necessary, it will be found that the men will get the full capacity out of the plant.

In making up schedules every operation should be itemized, and a price paid for each operation, and in addition to that, wherever possible, many operations should be grouped under one head, thereby allowing one schedule number to be used for fifty or sixty operations. This will reduce the clerical work in that proportion and also liability to error. It will also be found that this will be more satisfactory to the men, and will help to increase the output, as men who have a week's work in sight will figure further ahead than if they only had one or two hours.

After establishing a fair rate for a given operation, the company should be

willing to pay it, and not want to reduce the price whenever, by a special effort the men make a liberal profit.

It will be necessary to have honest, conscientious piece work inspectors, checkers and foremen.

BENEFITS TO THE COMPANY.

In introducing this system in a railway shop, as a rule, it is a complete change of paying the men and operating the plant, and it is not to be wondered at that it meets with some opposition; the men are nervous and scared, and imagine all sorts of things, the principal one being that their wages are to be materially reduced, and while in this frame of mind the utmost patience and tact on the part of the men in charge should be exercised. After having passed through this stage, and the men see that instead of getting less pay and worse treatment their conditions are improved and their pay increased, the change may be considered fairly started.

Happy should be the superintendent of motive power or general manager who, upon investigation, finds that after a year of persistent effort only 30 or 40 per cent of the work is done piece work, as that will show to him that the experience thus gained is invaluable, and that the remaining 60 or 70 per cent will be handled very much better from all standpoints.

The prices paid in other shops should not govern in yours; each shop should stand on its own merits and work out its own salvation; the classifications and systems of one shop may be a guide to help in another, but the conditions, facilities, and ways of doing work vary so much in shops on the same system that the prices applying in one shop will not apply in another. Prices should be based on thoroughly competent workmen and the standard of the workmen elevated as much as possible. The prices should be based on full capacity of machines, where the holding back practice is not resorted to. If this is done, it will be found that the ordinary or slow workman will soon fall in line with the best. If this is not done, and the price is based on medium workmen, the standard of the shop will be lowered, and the best men dragged down, and instead of elevating them you will be lowering them.

It will also be found, as a man said to me the other day in regard to the output of an erecting shop, that conditions are widely different between piece work and day work. This man said that while they were working day work in their department, the foreman was around hustling a gang of twenty men, trying to make a creditable showing, but now that the case is reversed the men in the gang were after the foreman demanding that they be kept busy, and work furnished them in advance; that notwithstanding the fact that the force had not been increased, the output of the shop was double, their former average being six engines per month, now twelve engines.

The quality of the work was also improved because, under piece work system each man is responsible for what he does, and if it is not done right it must be done over at his expense.

A roundhouse foreman called my attention to a case, the other day, where he formerly employed four machinists on running repairs, and now two do the work;

that formerly it required most of his time looking after them to see that the work was done on time, but since the advent of piece work he pays very little attention to this, aside from inspecting the work; that the men are looking after him to see that they are given all the work that comes in, and that the back shop men are not called on to take work that they can do.

In starting a gang of four men recently to work on freight car doors, after discussing with them the price that we proposed to pay, and that being agreed upon, they were asked what they could offer to help the cause along, the first thing that they wanted was that their force be reduced one-half, and that benches and tools that were used by them for years without protest be changed and rebuilt, as they would not do under any circumstances now.

The desired changes were made, and two men now do more work than was formerly done by four men.

In one of our tank rooms we had a gang of ten men apparently working hard; piece work was introduced, and now we have five men.

I believe it is generally considered that piece work properly installed will effect a saving of 30 per cent in nearly all departments. This is, I think, a conservative estimate, and will be increased or decreased, according to the conditions and supervision.

This is one of the arguments used against piece work, as it throws so many men out of employment, and yet how many men are found idle who are willing to work? It is simply a modern condition of affairs with which we are confronted, and we have to meet it as we meet anything else in the line of progress.

In days gone by fifteen or twenty miles per hour was considered a satisfactory speed for our trains; today the public are demanding from sixty to seventy.

PITFALLS.

The management should not lose sight of the fact that many foremen get scared as soon as piece work is introduced; and, if their men make a little money, are at once ready to use the scalping knife and cut prices. If we analyze this we can readily see the folly of it. Suppose, as an illustration, we started a department on piece work prices carefully made. Say the day rate is $2.00, and some men by a special effort will make $3.00, or perhaps $4.00, per day on some special operation; we then cut the price so that by the same effort this man will barely make $2.00. The result will be that the men will say: What is the use of making any more than wages? they will cut the rate. And your men from that time on simply make the time fit the price, regardless of what they could do.

My attention was recently called to an operation in a shop on a machine that paid $4.00, and the man barely made wages, requiring thirteen hours to do the job. The same operation in another shop, casting made at the same foundry, pattern number the same, was paid for at the rate of $3.30, and the man in this latter shop had performed this work in six and one-half hours. In talking with the man confidentially who used the thirteen hours' time, he said that he could do this work in seven or eight hours, but that every time he had made any money his schedule had been cut, and there was no use to make any further effort, and he simply made the time fit the prices. In talking with the man who performed this operation in six

and one-half hours, he said his prices were never cut, and the men tried to make all the money they could at all times.

Now, figuring that the man who did this work in six and one-half hours made 50 cents per hour, or 20 cents per hour more than it was calculated he would make, the company paid him a net profit of say $1.30. Figuring this machine is worth $1.00 an hour to the company, it received the use of the machine for six and onehalf hours more, equal to $6.50, and 70 cents cheaper price makes the net gain for the company $7.20. I believe they can well afford to pay this workman the extra profit of $1.30, leaving them a net gain of $5.90.

We sometimes think that we can calculate very closely on the capacity of a machine, but experience has proven that we cannot calculate the capacity of a man; and if by superior ability and extra hard work some men make big money, I should say let them make it. The increased output and decreased cost per piece amply pays the company.

Whenever I read that piece work has increased the output in any shop 16 per cent, and increased the pay of the men only 8 per cent, I say at once: "There is a field for a piece work expert, and the hold back process is in full sway." Whenever men do not make more than 8 or 10 per cent over their wages, you can rest assured there is something wrong, and it will bear investigating.

I noticed an article going the rounds in the mechanical papers, describing a car shop whose output is fifteen cars per day. This article describes how perfect the system is and what is expected of each man for a day's work, and how well the men work.

I would like very much to see these same men in this shop paid so much per piece for the same work they are now doing, based on the time they now consume in each operation, with the distinct understanding that the prices would not be cut, and that there would be no limit placed on their earnings. I believe if this were done, the managers of those shops would be surprised at the increased output and the increased pay their men would make. Proper supervision will, of course, accomplish a great deal, but nothing appeals to a man like his pocket-book.

Piece work develops specialists; experience has proven that men like to do the same thing day after day; they prepare for it, get good tools and better facilities for doing the work, and this greatly increases the output as well as the quality of the work, because men become experts in doing the same class of work all the time.

I also find that men are very slow to resign piece work jobs, far more so than when working by the day, as there seems to be a certain fascination where the amount varies according to the energy displayed.

I noticed an article going the rounds of the press wherein 200 blacksmiths, wagon makers and laborers were on a strike. This article says that previous to going on a strike, although unorganized, the men sent a committee to the managers asking that their wages be restored. This was refused, but the men were told to go to work at the piece work scale and, if the former wages could not be made, a satisfactory arrangement would be made with them. Instead of the former wages, the men by working harder and longer hours, could earn $1.25 to $1.40 per day. If this is true, is it any wonder that the men were dissatisfied, or the piece work system a failure?