MAN -TO -MAN Tin: STORY or INDUSTRIAL '2MOCKACY JOHN LEITCH MAN TO MAN The Story of Industrial Democracy BY JOHN LEITCH ED nv THE B. C. K)RBKS COMPANY 299 BROADWAY, M.\V YORK. Copyright, /p/p, by H. C. OSBORN ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF TRANSLATION INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES, INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN INTRODUCTION T I IK whole future of the United States is bound up in the establishment of a happy relation between tin- employer and the employee. It mu.st he happy hut with the happiness of united effort by both ami not the happiness of mute, unthinking obedience. \\ e have need for the brains as well as the hands of all who are able to work. In the past we have hat! only the hands; it is high time that we should also have the brains --have complete men working in a great industrial democracy. In this little book I have faithfully set down something of the theory and a tew ot the cases arising out of my own conception of Industrial Democracy in the hope that it will serve to bring the attention of both employer and employee to the big probK m which confronts us. I have taken most of the incidents out of conditions arising from the Great \\ ar because it is the War that marks the transi- tion of labor to a state of economic independence. JOHN LEITCH. New York, N: Y. January, 1919. TAKLK OF CONTEXTS CHAPTKR I Till- F.-UTOKY WoRKl-.R OF ToD AY ... 3 I he m.m who works and the man who hire 1 ; wherein tlirv difh-r the p.r sin^ ot the American workman - the foreign-born fo-dav make up the body <>f our workitv: people standardisation ot work repres- sion of nuii\iJu.il cxpreMf>n the inception .uul the abuse of welfare woik -the lack of interest and cart- among workers t!ie absence of well-conceived policies to govern relations between employers and employees the problem that employer. 1 ; must .solve. CHAPTER II WHY Mi N STRIKI: 16 I he wastage of ;.OOO strikes the greater wnsta^o of silent !i!-\'.ii! - r.iiMt 1 .^ v.ams witl'.out r.ii'in:: work values competition of labor and capt.il within :\ factory- -the il!-v. ;il fii.it m -nerati s strikes work- ers as rcnf.iMe comirodities hov.- j m.i :i is hire:! ...".,1 tiled -wh.it IKS job h<>K!s for him :e;vrt of t!u- Mediation Commission--strikes are i!;:- to th.e '.:,'k of a common ground of understanding tea .!u::^ a inutu.;! under>tandmg without uisor^am/mi; in- CONTENTS PAOE CHAPTER III BUILDING MEN TO BUILD PIANOS ... 30 The Packard Piano Co., Fort Wayne, Ind. A shut- down and the aftermath what ill-will did to the product the case of the varnishers the beginnings of democracy the Business Policy Justice Co- operation Economy Energy Service the first dividend the improvement in quality inventions to save labor the efficiency report from the boiler room how they met slack times how 168 men did the work of 268 "If there is no harmony in the factory there will be none in the piano." CHAPTER IV OUT OF A CONFUSION OF TONGUES . . 63 William Demuth & Co., New York nine hundred aliens and how they acted in the pipe factory the making of a briar pipe what aliens think of an em- ployer and the resentment they put into their work putting over the idea of Justice how they received the dividend system the organization of the House of Representatives and Senate the initial dividend how the men cut down absenteeism removing an incompetent foreman the barring of alien tongues fixing their own piece rates the case of the superintendent the taming of Rosa making an art out of patching cutting out the labor turn- over the improvements in methods that came from the men eliminating seconds a remarkable in- crease in production. CHAPTER V THE SUPERVISION THAT COUNTS ... 92 Sidney Blumenthal & Co., the Shelton Mills, Shel- ton, Conn. the half million dollars in spoiled vel- CONTENTS vet* the management's efforts to cut down waste and the failure of cooperation the call of war work the character of the employees -what was the matter with the goods the re|x>rtf that the House Committee brought in on Ix-ttering condition-, getting at the reasons for seconds wh.it the work- ers think of piece rates and the quantity bonus the evolution of the quality bonus quality vs. quantity how the quality bonus workrd - quantity went up with quality saving waste paper "Saving Waste Increases Pay." CIIAPTF.R VI MUST A FOR i- MAN Hi: A PUGILIST? . . in The hard-fisted blacksmith who built a foundry the rule of force and how it worked when the workers got the upper hand the drop in production wage increases that lowered production the coming of Industrial Democracy ceasing to work as individ- uals the wage hold-up that failed a IO per cent, economy dividend the Mutual Benefit Association eliminating imperfect castings the story of the "cupola man" the inspector that they apjxmitcd for themselves a 5^ per cent, increase in production the fall in labor turnover. CHAPTER VII INDUSTRIAL DEMOCRACY 133 The universal application the birth of Industrial Democracy wages and work the first experiment - -the fundamentals definitions details of organ- i/ation the Cabinet -the Senate the House of Representatives adjusting wages the Business Policy of Justice, Economy, Energy, Cooperation, CONTENTS PACE and Service taking good intentions out of the pas- sive definition of manufacturing the human as- set the common aims of Labor and Capital the right payment of workers the place of money the evils of the production bonus the necessity for a fluctuating addition to wages based upon service the failure of profit-sharing the Collective Economy dividend. CHAPTER VIII INDUSTRIAL DEMOCRACY, THE EMPLOYEES, AND THE UNIONS 169 The five changes which Industrial Democracy always brings about transforming the unskilled worker quality vs. quantity some production records the suspicions of the workers how to overcome them selling the idea of fair play introducing democracy how the workers use their power a model appeal how the foremen act responsibility in hiring and firing how the men take charge of labor turnover there cannot be strikes from within never a strike the attitude of the unions. CHAPTER IX INDUSTRIAL DEMOCRACY AND THE EMPLOYER 194 Corporation managers should not indulge in social experiments the dangers of laisscz faire the labor outlook the need for a new relation business is propelled by human force founding upon a princi- ple labor troubles at the root of business troubles the public is a party how Industrial Democracy strengthens the investment how it affects manage- ment the two cases in which once tried it lias been abandoned an insurance of capital what it does. CONTENTS MU CHAPTER X KI:I:PIM; Aim: THI. COMMUNITY SPIRIT . 213 Industrial Democracy 11 nut self-propelling - there .irr always scolK-is the usr of message* and licilic organs advertising t!ir idea -the kind that pu!!-. -- i Dinniuiiu atiatis to thr I louse aiul Senate the pivc and t.ikc attitude food for vanity the- power of the \\ rittcn word. CHA1TKR XI PtTriNi; I.M-.OR HI-HIND AMI-RICA . . . 221 Industrial Democracy mukrs Americans our pres- ent state of Americanism l.u-k of intense national- ism after the war -relation of prosperity and the national spirit how Industrial Democracy Lindlcs the national spirit of democracy insistence of workers ti|x>n a single language the political pro- gressionIndustrial Democracy is an Americanizing force an industrial union. -o MAN TO MAN Man to Man, The Story of Industrial Democracy CIIAITKR I Till- FACTORY WORK I R OF TOP AY HAYK we not talked ratlu-r too much about working people as a class and too little of thorn as human individuals? "Labor" and "capital" arc convenient terms, but insensibly the terminology leads us into think- ing that all people who work j>.r money belong to one species and all people who work. ::;:/: money to anotlu r. Perhaps from the detached viewpoint <>i the economist, you may take labor as one thing and capital as another, bur \\htn you come clown to specific problems in modern ir.v!i:s:rv YOU l:r.d that you have to dial not \\ith broad, c;:?.rr;.ble forces but with a more or less miscellaneous col- lection ot individuals, some o! whom h..;^pe:i to be employers and others employees. A;-.J. asiile from some differences in clothing, education, and 4 Man to Man money the capitalist and the laborer are really pretty much alike. In fact, I think, if you strip- ped any organization and turned it out into a field you might have quite a little trouble cutting out the employers from the employees! It is easy enough to distinguish the common laborer in the packing house from the great capitalist in Wall Street if both are dressed and are in their usual environments. When a mechanic hires two help- ers on a job, however, and all three are working together, you are put to it to discover which is the representative of capital and which of labor. The man who was a worker yesterday may be an owner today. Schwab, Ford, Eastman, George F. Johnson, and dozens of other men who are to- day known as great employers of labor were work- ers only a few years ago were part of that which the socialists would like to impose on us as the proletariat. If you fall into the error of thinking that capital and labor are differentiated in blood just call the roll of the employers and find out how many of them once were "workers." It is not easy to get down to the man-to-man view; a countless number of today's workers seem to be scarcely human. In recent years, with the dwind- ling of English and Irish immigration, the workers Iiulustri.il Democracy 5 have been recruited from peoples with whom we recogni/e little in common from the Italian peasants ami from the uncouth dwellers in Russia ami Southern Kurope. 'I hese were people who, in their native lands, saw no future. They came. here bearing hopes- inarticulate, perhaps- of a freedom that could open a future. In our eyes they were brutish; they herded like so many animals and we began to think of them as such, lluir names were commonly so outlandish and their personalities so insignificant to us that we did not attempt to note them on the pay rolls -it was enough to designate them by numbers We for- got they were human beings. Americans, refus- ing to work with these foreigners, gradually drop- ped out of the large industrial units or advanced to positions as foremen or executives. For instance, only ten per cent, of the employees in the Chicago Stock Yards are American. An investigating commission found 26 separate na- tionalities in one Arizona mining camp and 32 in another. With a million of these polyglot workers pour- ing in every year readv to take any jobs at any wages, the whole face of industry changed. It took us a while to find out what really was going 6 Man to Man on. Then we awoke to the fact that between the employer and the employee had been erected a barrier of race and language. Instead of the old order in which the employees knew their employer as the "Boss" and called him by his first name, came a new order in w T hich the "boss" was an impersonal being whom the workers did not know by sight. There sprung up a kind of half military organization in which the chief owner was a field marshal, the executives were generals, and the workers only privates and they meant just about as much to the field-marshal owner as does a private soldier where there is military caste. The old order had passed and in great establish- ments there was a wide social gulf between the employer and the employee. The gulf would have been wide enough anyhow owing to the class distinctions which the new immigrants brought with them, but it was widened further by the peculiar development of the processes of industry. Professor D. S. Kimball presents the situation very accurately in an article in Industrial Management in which he says : Changes in industrial methods are followed necessarily by changes in the status of the worker; so far as industry itself is concerned, and by changes in his social status as well. Ic Industrial Democracy 7 duttri.il changes and thrtr effect* come, usually, with great rapidity, but social changes arc likely to follow very *lov*-|y ami only because of jjreat effort on thr part of tho- interested. Invention and it* eHetts always greatly outrun the MKi.il changes that inevitably follow in their wale. 1 he industrial revolution at once separated the worker from the tool* of industry- No longer could he compete as an independent operator using handicraft tools, but he was compelled tt> depend for employment upon capital, which alone could pro- vide the new implements of production. At the same time this revolution broke up the old social order, destroying the old friendly paternal relations between master and man, but provided nothing to take their place. 1 he problem before us is to rind the conditions that will reestablish satisfactory industrial and social relations. It the worker of today had to depend upon medieval ideals as to his place in the world his condition would undoubtedly be much worse than it now is. It was quickly recogni/ed that these new methods greatly increased man's productive capacity but at the same time it was as quickly recogm/ed by advanced thinkers that these methods carried with them no regulative principle 1 ! that guaranteed fair distribution f these added benefits. It was quickly .seen that the old rela- tions were not adequate for these new conditions, .irul it was quickly proven that the industrial classes could not depend" upon the good will of individuals or group-? of CM;;-! >ycrs fir fairru-s* or even decent protection against the e\ i!s of mod- ern industrial methods. Employers wi-re not inhuman; tlu-y simply couIJ not realize what li.ul happened, \\hen they did get their bearings a kind r.t stvial eon- sci'.msness began to devi-lop. Movi-d partly by the desire to have more intelligent pcvplr to deal 8 Man to Man with, and partly by a feeling of benevolence, they formed plans to better working conditions. This first welfare work was almost purely philanthropic. It was generally felt by even the fairest minded of employers that raising wages would be a positive disservice to the people because they would not know what to do with the extra money and would probably spend it in riotous living. Most employers reasoned somewhat in this fashion: "The people have accustomed themselves to a scale of living nearly as low as that in which they had been reared in Europe; they have no desire for anything better. What they do want is more to drink and more days on which to get thoroughly drunk; their women want gaudier clothing, but none of them have any desire to live a more human and less animal existence. They do not want to be clean or to be orderly, or to read, or to exercise, or to play games." The improvements in the standard of living among immigrants did not spring from their natural desires but were, at the first, imposed upon them almost by force, by the employers. The employers took the paternal attitude that the people would not help themselves and therefore had to be helped. That is the idea behind the first welfare work, and those employers Iiuiustri.il Democrat) 9 who introduced welfare wotk should be given due credit . We sometimes forget that lute in America, in what \ve are pleased to call a fire country, we had a % .nt number of people who were little more than serfs, because they could not comprehend any other way of working. 'I hey worked in America exactly as they had worked in Kuropr with little vision and without responsibility , grubbing through from day to day, and mightih glad to have enough to eat. I he tirst welfare work was a brave expcii- ment but not because those who instituted it saw that the mental development of the workers would create new problems. It was brave because it seemed to be a throwing away of money which had always been taken as profit. When J<-hn II. Patterson insisted that Ins factories i h<'uK! be flooded with light, that machines should IT spot- lessly clean, and that workers should be personally clean, his associates thought that he wa> c:a/\. And other employers in Dayton jeeringly wanted to know if he was sure of what he was doing and had not absent-mindedly started a finishing school for young ladies. In the beginning, welfare work was thus a truly zharitable uplifting of European peasants; mci- c io Man to Man dentally it proved to be good business. It was found that it was short sighted to expect good work from undernourished human beings laboring in a dark filthy hole. Even those employers with no social consciousness were quick enough to perceive the investment return on welfare work and at once plunged. It was cheaper to maintain a few baseball fields than to add a dollar a week to the wages of ten thousand men. The mathematics were all in favor of the welfare work. They began to substitute it for wages and, unfortunately, the welfare work that was good gained practically the same disfavor as that which sprang from unworthy motives. The tendency of employers was to become more and more paternal and of the employees to become more and more dissatisfied. When you teach a man to bathe, you do more than merely teach him to cleanse his body. You introduce him to a new kind of life and create in him a desire for better living and then, of course, he requires higher wages in order to satisfy the new desires. The paternal employers thought that the living oppor- tunities which they provided should be enough and that the workers ought to be satisfied with clean homes and clean places in which to work; Industrial Democracy 11 they did not know that they had starml something which they could not stop. lh<-.e \sho had gone into the bettering of indiistn.il conditions solely from a financial standpoint felt that they had made a wroni; i;uess, while those who had been animated solely by charity wen- deeply hurt to think, that their benefactions had not been appre- ciated. I recall one manufacturer telling me as ;;n instance of " no matter what you do tor them they won't appreciate it" that he had actually loaned em- ployees in the a^rc^ate a very considerable sum of money to tide them over a period when the factory was closed and that some of the workers had been so rude as to tell him that if he knew how to run his business he would not have to close t down! The paternal idea persists. Employers think that in many cases they arc public benefactors because they provide work. 'I hey do not seem to realize that they could not make money it" thev did not have the work to provide. 'I he workers, on the other hand, have also developed a class conscious- ness and resent paternalism. 'I in;, have found that by mass action they can make or unmake the employer and set themselves up as a kind of com- modity of a market value fluctuating \\iih the 12 Man to Man times. The labor leaders resent any classification of their people as a commodity and prefer the term "collective bargaining." It does not make much difference how we describe the attitude, the point to bear in mind is that the worker very properly takes the position that his wages are not largesse, that it is not a favor for any one to hire him but that it is really a pure business proposition a bargain and sale. Collective bargaining and trade unionism pro- tect against paternalism, against the cheating employer (of whom there are some although for- tunately not many) and help to add to the dignity of employment by putting it on a business basis. Trade unionism likewise holds dangers. In order to attract members many organizers have talked wildly and tried to persuade the people that there is such a thing as "labor" and that its chief duty is to fight a thing called "capital." This acute class consciousness has not yet gone so far here as in England, but its growth is being helped not a little by the employers talking about labor in exactly the same way that the unions talk about capital. The further sinister development is the attempt to destroy the individuality of the worker by putting all upon the same level, by Industrial Democracy 13 requiring that a man shall not produce more than a certain amount within a en tain time, and by short -sightcdly opposing the introduction of labor- saving machinery which must, in the end, really add to the dignity and power of labor. Thus we find a kind of new alignment, not very definite as yet but growing moie definite. The employee works for the money that he can get. lie knows perfectly well that if he does not look after his own money no one else will; he lias taken his regard from the work itself to the money that he can get for it and he finds nowhere a community of interest with the man who pays him the money. What is the result of all this? The first result is that, lacking any incentive other than the money the worker will listlessly return just that amount of exertion which will obtain the money. He feels himself fettered, unable to express himself, and can see no chance to get ahead, lor, if he has classified himself as "labor" and as having a market price he cannot see how it is possible ever to get out of the class or to command much more by great exertion than he is now earning by little exertion. He wants to give the least that he can in return for the money paid to him. It is up to 14 Man to Man the employer then to get his money's worth. He drives while the worker sulks. Both the employer and the employee are gov- erned by the same impulses and the one is no more culpable than the other they simply have not gotten to a place where they can converse with each other in the same language and form a part- nership. The employee thinks that the employer is grinding him down for his own personal profit; the employer thinks that the employee is a "gold brick artist." They are mutually distrustful and the result is petty, irritating incidents that de- velop distrust. The employer likes to dodge the situations. As a writer in the New Republic said not long since: If a survey could be made of the minds of a thousand Ameri- can manufacturers at random, and a report gathered of their prevailing practices in dealing with labor, it would probably be a rudimentary affair. When orders are abundant, as at present, hire as many men as you can get at the market rate. If you can't get enough at this rate, pay a little more than your neighbor. Work the men longer hours. If they become dissatisfied, give them a little more money. If this process forces wages too high, recoup in two ways: charge higher prices and introduce cheaper labor wherever you can, especially women. If that gets you into trouble with the unions, keep your shops non-union as far as possible, appeal to the patriot- ism of your employees, blame seditious agitators for all strikes and demand industrial conscription from the government. Industrial Democracy 15 This is an overdrawn description but it has some elements of accuracy. It reveals the big fact which all of us like to dodge that there exists no general, definite labor policy. It is true that employment managers have done much toward helping to found policies, but generally they are easily over-ruled by higher executives on the points that are really important. Hut they seek to adjust existing conditions as between C.ill dis- charge them as shirkers if they complain. 1 here- fore they quit. Or, the rate may lu high and their fellow workers will quickly give the tip not to 24 Man to Man spoil a good thing by turning out too much. They loaf on the job. Take such an individual case. What is his outlook? He knows he will not be advanced to a better rate because the work he is doing is worth just so much and no more. The best that he can expect is to keep working away at that machine until the end of time, being paid precisely the same amount for his labor regardless of his effi- ciency unless some force outside the factory com- pels a general raise. The reward for high efficiency will be a cut in the rate. When the volume of work lessens he expects to be laid off; he knows also that the foreman, convinced of the efficacy of military discipline, will, probably, from time to time, do a little indiscriminate firing in order, as the foreman himself would express it "to put the fear of God in their hearts." The worker's relations are wholly impersonal; he has a number and he is nothing more than a number. His first thought always must be to look out for himself certainly no one else will do that for him. He will be fired for bad work but not rewarded for exceptionally good work. He has not a single inducement to take an interest in what is going on about him. Having his own Industrial Democracy 25 welfare in mind, he is ready to join in any move- ment which promises higher wages and easier work. There is the average factory worker! Probably at some period of his life he has been harshly or unfairly treated by a boss or by some employment agency for cheating immigrants used to be one of our favorite national pastimes. It is inevitable that he should gather together quite a good deal of specific ill-will against individuals and it is not unnatural that this sense of cumulative smarting injustice should be directed against some specific object. The most convenient target is the em- ployer for whom he happens to be working. And because human nature is always illogical, he bears ill-will toward his employer no matter how fair that particular employer may happen to be. It is a class and not an individual enmity. Thus he is open to suggestion from any and every demagogue who comes along. \Vhcn a man is discontented he greatly appreciates having ft demagogue to congratulate him on hts discontent and suggest a few other things thar he ought to be angry about. It is a deplorable condition but perfectly understandable; it is reasonable in its very unreasonableness. Take this extract from 26 Man to Man the extremely intelligent report of President Wil- son's Mediation Commission upon labor unrest: As is generally true of large industrial conflicts, the roots of labor difficulty in the packing industry lie deep. The chief source of trouble comes from lack of solidarity and want of power on the part of the workers to secure redress of griev- ances because of the systematic opposition on the part of the packers against the organization of its workers. The strike of 1903 destroyed the union, and for fourteen years the organi- zation of the yards has been successfully resisted. In 1917 effective organization again made itself felt, so that by the end of the year a sizable minority, variously estimated from 25 to 50 per cent., was unionized. It is a commonplace of trade-union experience that an organized compact minority can control the labor situation in an industry. The union leaders felt, and rightly felt, therefore, that their demands had the effective backing of a potential strike. More import- ant than any of the specific grievances, however, was the natural desire to assert the power of the, union by asking the packers for union recognition, at least to the extent of a meet- ing between thj packers and the representatives of the unions. This the packers refused to do. They refused to meet eye to eye with the union leaders because of distrust of those leaders. It can not be gainsaid that the absence of a union organization for fourteen years, the increasingly large per cent, of non-English-speaking labor, and the long pent-up feeling of bitterness, all tended to make some of the men in whom the leadership for the time being rested somewhat devoid of that moderation in thought and speech which comes from long experience in trade negotiations. On the other hand, refusal of the packers to deal with these leaders tended to encourage and intensify those very qualities which dissuaded the packers from industrial contact with them. The two important specific grievances involved low wages Iiulustri.il Democracy 27 and lonjj hours. In fact, two wage increase* had, during if/17, been granted to workmen, largely in an endeavor to forestall union aitivity. Nevertheless the- i lairn w.% nude, and vahdly made. ih.it flic wa^r scale*, particularly f>r the creat body of unskilled workers, were inadequate in vu-w of the increased cost of IIMIIK- A further fait that mfluerued the workers in their w.i:;e demand was the h.-hef that the com- panici had hern maLing e\n-ss profit-, dr-.pifc Cinvernment rejjtilation of juurs. I nfortunatcly thr rrtus.il of tin- pack- ers to meet flu- union leaden deprived the p.u Li rs of tfie op- portunity ot explaining away, if possible, the Ixlitf enter- tained by tiic men that the packers were profiteering. Analyze those paragraphs. The union was strong In-cause of the ill-will of the workers. This ill-vsi!I h.ul not been ijuieted by increasing waj;es; rat fur the increases were taken as evidence that evm higher waives could be paid. Discon- tent generated the suspicion that the company profits \\ere unduly large and th- people asked for a share in them under the guise of higher pay. The workers called their employers profiteers and in the next breath asked to share in the swag! How easily these matters nii^ht have been settled had the workers some democratic nut hod of hnd- inp out what really was goi:i on and of urging their pleas for what they thought was justice. I am not attempting to say who was n^ht; there is nothing to show that the profits were unduly 28 Man to Man high, but the real point is that the packers and their workers "had no easy, informal way of get- ting together and finding cut about each other. Men strike because they are without adequate representation; they may ostensibly go out for wages or hours but the rub nowadays is the recog- nition of the union. They think that they want money, but when they get the money they have always another complaint and whether or not it happens to be phrased in money is of small matter; that is merely a fault of expression. What is really behind it all is the half-articulated feeling that they should be treated not as mere material but as co-promoters of industry; that there should be a dignity in their position and relations. Take again the report of the Mediation Com- mission and look at this summary of why men strike: American industry lacks a healthy basis of relationship between management and men . . . there is a widespread lack of knowledge on the part of capital as to labor's feelings and needs and on the part of labor as to the problem s of man- agement ... to uncorrected specific evils in the absence of a healthy spirit between capital and labor . . . too often there is a glaring inconsistency between our democratic purposes in this war abroad and the autocratic conduct of some of those conducting industry at home. Industri.il Democracy 29 Is not this formal conclusion only another way of saying that we have failed to appreciate the value of mutual understanding? That we have failed to get down to a man-to-man basis? But can such an understanding he had without radically changing the whole organization of industry? It can. In the following chapters I am present- ing some cases where it has been done. CHAPTER III BUILDING MEN TO BUILD PIANOS THE mutterings, the vague threats, had come to a head at last. An emissary of the union had just informed the president of the Packard Piano Company of Fort Wayne, Ind., that thence- forth the shop was to be exclusively a union shop, that other than union members in good standing were not to work in it it was to be run as a "closed shop." He had broken the news with a half-courteous, half-impudent man- ner a "this is how you're going to run your business" air taking no pains to conceal his satis- faction over the rapid unionizing of the men. He felt able to dictate. "You mean that I am to discharge every man who does not belong to your union?" queried the president. "Most of them belong," answered the agent, "and we will give the others a fair chance to join.'* "And if they don't?" 30 Industrial Democracy 31 "Thru I guess we'll have to treat them as scabs," remarked the agent carelessly; and thru, significantly, "you know we union men can't work with scabs." "You nu-an ro say that if these men do not join anil I do not discharge them you will call a strike? 1 he agent nodded, " I hat's about it." "I will not discharge a man except for poor work or bad conduct here," continued the president firmly. "I ndcr the circumstances, I think we had bitter quit before you do. I will shut down this factory within an hour and I will not open it again until I lind men who are willing to work as I want them to and not as you want." I he president kept his word, lie closed flu- shop but not in the way that the union agent had asked; he closed it "for repairs and installing machinery." The strike was on. The union fought hard but the odds were against it and also the people, tor the Middle West was not then very favorable ro unions, \\ithin a month the factory opened again; the union men came straggling back for their old jobs and got them. The president- had maintained his position and the unjust labor leader had been forced to back down. According 32 Man to Man to the technique of strikes, the company had won and the men had lost. Such was the face of things. But a glance at the production chart for the first month after opening caused the president to doubt if he had won as much as he had lost. On paper the factory should have been producing to the limit; the full complement was on the pay roll, every machine was running. But pianos were not coming through at more than half the right volume and those that did come through were by no means up to standard; the workmanship was careless and the sales agents began to complain. As the months went by, conditions became worse. The men openly soldiered on their jobs; they had no in- terest, they disgruntedly worked because and they did not care who knew it they had no other place to find wages. The company lost not only money through the high cost of the instruments but also customers through delivering faulty goods. Everybody company and men was sore. This was not a case of a grinding employer trying to beat production out of his men. The president was a fair man one of the fairest that I have ever met; he wanted to do what was right; Industrial Democracy 33 he paid the market wage for a ten-hour day. His trouble with the union had not been due to wages, hours, or conditions; he was not opposed to unions and he would have stood ready to con- duct a "closed shop," could he have reconciled himself to discharging workmen for nor belonging to the union. He hoped that better methods might bring a change and he retained an efficiency' en- gineer; for eighteen months that engineer labored to speed production and cur costs but the men simply would not cooperate; they would not do more than drag through their tasks'. I he president put the whole situation before me frankly: "I feel that I am somehow to blame here; I cannot get down to the men; they do not trust me although I am as fair as I know how to be. I simply have not sold myself to them. I shall do anything you tell me to do. I put myself in your hands." I was convinced of his sincerity. I looked about a bit for the real causes ot the strike whose wake hail caused the trouble. The factory wa-s an old established one and had originally made reed organs for the home. They branched our into the manufacture of pianos as the market for organs lessened. In the change the men who had been 34 Man to Man with the company for years were shifted into new departments and, although places were found for all of them, they were none too happy at the new work. The efficiency engineer put in a schedule of piece rates. They began on a wrong basis, had to be tinkered constantly, and gave universal dissat- isfaction. The workmen came to doubt all the rates and felt vaguely that they were being "done." Then appeared the "walking delegate" to unionize the town; he got a hearty reception and within a few weeks the president was called on to recognize the union which he promptly did. It so happened that the president, secretary, and treasurer of the local were all in the company's shops and they began at once to use their new- found power. All three of them were in the varnishing department; they asked and got a rate of 30 cents an hour for varnishing piano cases with a time limit of 32 hours for 16 cases and a bonus for finishing within that limit. Then they asked for a limit of 36 hours and a higher hour rate. The president did not grant the increase; instead he brought over some of the old non-union men from the organ department who were rated at only 28 cents. These men did their first cases in 26 hours and, within a few days, cut the time to Industrial Democracy 35 2O hours. Thrn the president, as an answer to the union demands, cut the rate and time limit according to the records made by the non-union men. Thereupon the union men retired in a hufl and the acute labor trouble stage set in. The men did not dislike the president; they simply did not know him and defiantly did nor want to know him. I say the men did not want to know him. It would be more accurate to say that they refused to know him. They were stub- born although they did realize, in a way, that it was disagreeable to work under an armed truce-. Time passes heavily when there is no joy in tin- work and every ir.an, I do not care v,!;o lie 's, would rather i ::jov working than n;u! ir a bun!- :i. '1 he p:'e i .<'.*. nt was sincere in his iKrir,- to have a comple'.- understanding with his nun- !:;K-.Y t'.ar otherwise I should rot have a:tt.mp: '. t > won. v\i'!i him. ^ on can tal.e it as absolute t!..:t there can be- no decent relation 1 ; lutv. , n employer and employee if either wants to "put anything over" on the other. After spending a few days talking with the men, wandering about the shops and getting all of the conditions hxed in my mind, I called a mass meet- ing in the company's time. To ir came every 36 Man to Man officer and employee of the company. Every per- son on the pay roll was there. Probably they would not have come had the meeting been held at noon time or at any other period when the minutes were paid for by the men and not by the company. If the holding of any kind of a mass meeting for the betterment of an organization is worth while, then it is worth paying for and it is the company and not the men who should do the paying. I planned for no formal meeting. We did not hire a hall nor did we have a platform from which any one might take an exercise in oratory and talk down to the men. We simply grouped in the biggest shop. I cannot say that there was any- thing particularly inspiring about the atmosphere. The workers were willing to hear what I had to say largely for the reason that they were being paid for the time, and as between two evils, they preferred listening to me to working. I spoke to them carefully, simply, and as one of them. I did not assume that the company was right and they were wrong; neither did I tell them that they had nearly all the known virtues and that we were meeting largely to shake hands with ourselves over that fact. A workman is a human being; he knows perfectly well that he is not a paragon Industrial Democracy 37 of virtue anil however much hi- may applaud any one who tells him that he is, right down in In. heart he feels that the speaker who emits such persiflage s no better than a fool. A normal human being will take great gobs of "soft soap"; he will even follow leaders who do nothing but oo/c such stuff; but our of all my experience I have yet to find a workman who does not consider himself first as a man and only secondly as a workman, and who does not know that as a man lie has no greater share of attributes divine than is commonly dealt out to humanity in general. I told the crowd that things were not going well, that they were not doing their work, and neither they nor the company were getting as much out of life as each had a right to expect. 1 he trouble is," I said, "you are working ar cross purposes. The company is going one way and you are going another and it is not necessary for me to explain to any of you that a cart cannot get anywhere if it is being pulled in different di- rections. It is not anybody's fault -it is every- body's fault. ^ ou are to blame and tin- company is to blame, or, if you would like better to put ;. in another way, you are not to blame and the com- pany is not to blame. 38 Man to Man "I think that I know what the trouble is and I am here to help you and the company to help yourselves. I shall not ask you to do anything except listen and ask questions. If you think I am on the square we will have more meetings and work this thing out. But if you think I am trying to put anything over on you, say so. This is your meeting and not mine. By your vote you can take me or leave me. "I think the trouble with this company and with you is that we have no common business policy a single policy which will be that of the company and of every man in this room. Did you ever think how easily matters would run if both the company and yourselves were working along the same lines? If you were all out for the same thing and willing to work together in the fairest, squarest manner? If we have a policy it should be put down in black and white and hung up on the wall. You can carry copies in your pocket, and you can make it the rule of your conduct in everything. "I am not going to give you a policy I am going to ask you to adopt one for yourselves. It will have four corner-stones and a cap-stone but I am going to suggest only one a week. We will Industrial Democracy 39 take one today, talk it over, ami then vote on it. If you vote "Yes" wr will lay the second corner- stone a week from today and then you can vote on that. Hut if this corner-stone or those which we may talk about on any later day, does not suit you, I expect you to vote "No" and we will quit. There is absolutely no use in having a business policy unless everybody agrees to ir, ami by every- body I mean not only the president of the company but also the truck men and the office boys. I suggest, as the hrst corner-stone Justice" I talked about Justice; what it means in our daily life; that we cannot expect Justice unless also we give Justice. That it is two sided; that it causes a square deal all around on the part of the men as well as on the part of the company. Then I offered this resolution to be adopted as the hrst corner-stone of the policy: NVc, the Employers, Officers, and Directors, rcconi/ing that Justice is the greatest pood and Injustice the prcatrst evil, do hereby lay and subscribe to, as the first corner-stone of our policy, this greatest of all good. JUSTICE The fullest meaning of this word shall be the basis of all our business and personal dealings among ourselves as indi- vidual s, between our company and those of whom we buy, and bef.vccn our company and those to whom we sell. 40 Man to Man Justice shall be the first Corner-stone upon which we agree and determine to construct broader character as individuals and broader commerce as an institution. We recognize that justice to ourselves necessitates taking advantage of every opportunity to do the best that is in us, and each day improve that growing ability. We realize that merit must be recognized whether in ability or merchandise. With this assurance we cheerfully, hope- fully, and courageously press forward to certain and unquali- fied success. The men were interested. Some of them had thought of justice only as another name for law, somehow mixed up with courts, bailiffs, prisons, or judgments. Others had thought of it as a fine thing to have around like a Bible. But I believe it had not occurred to any one that it was something which might be used on each day and every day of the year. They talked it over among themselves and with me. They wanted to know if the resolution meant what it said or if it was only a lot of words. Finally they adopted it unanimously. We adjourned for a week. During the days following I could note a change; it was a different crowd of men that came to the next meeting. Where they had been doubting they were now inquiring. They were opening their minds. At the second meeting we Industrial Democracy 41 adopted the second corner-stone -Cooperation in these words: 1 1 accomplish thr greatest possible rr-.u!f as individuals and as an institution we htul Cooperation a nrcrs.itv. We recogm/e that business without l''>prr4fi'iM is like sound without harmony, fhcrcforc we determine and agree to pull together and freely offer, and work v. uh, the spirit of that principle Cooperation. So we shall grow m character and ability and develop in- dividual and Commercial Supremacy. Differences of opinion shall he freely and fearlessly ex- pressed, but we shall at all times stand ready to C. < ,' fr.-.'.e with and heartily support the final judgment in all matters. In the successive weeks we adopted the remain- ing corner-stones of Economy and Enc'r^y, thus:- ECONOMY As each moment is a full unit in each hour and each hour a full unit in each day, so each well spent unit of thought and well-spent unit of action makes for each victory and the final success-. When the hour, the day, the year, or the life is filled with well-spent ability, and an institution is composed of individ- uals who recognize the value of and .so use their time, then success is controlled and governed and there is no longer vague uncertainty or a blind and unreasoning hope. Life is like a bag in which, each moment, we p!.uv a unit of value or of rubbish, and our present and future happiness depends upon the contents of that bag. Rccogni/.ing that l'.c->r., n:y is time, material, and energy well-spent, we determine to maki- the het u-.c of them, thus so shall time, matcn.il, and energy become our servants while we become the ma.sti:.s >; ;>i.r destiny. 42 Man to Man ENERGY As Energy is the power back of action, and action is nec- essary to produce results, we determine to Energize our minds and hands, concentrating all our powers upon the most important work before us. Thus intensifying our mental and physical activity, we shall "Make two grow where one was," well knowing that our Individual and Commercial Crop of Results will yield in just proportion to our productive and persistent activity. This power of Energy directed exclusively toward sound and vigorous construction leaves no room for destruction and reduces all forms of resistance. Having all our corner-stones in place, in the fifth week I summed up all that had gone before. I told them that we had the solidest foundation in the world to build on, one that could not be shaken. It only remained for them to put on a roof or a cap-stone and then we should have a complete structure that would last forever. As a cap-stone I suggested Service. I explained that our only end in life was service; that the only fun that we might find in life was through service; and that if we always bore in mind the four principles we had adopted and made them con- verge in the rendering of service we should not thereafter have anything anywhere to fear. With yells and cheers, that crowd of men who, five weeks before, had greeted me with an if-you- Industrial Democracy 43 must-get-it-out-of-your-systcm-shoot-ancl-gct-il donowith look, halted the beginning of work under what they conceived to he the new order of things. They were as one man for .SVrriVr. Here is what we voted as .SVf:/tv: We believe that the only sure ami sound construction of succr.ss as an uulivKlu.il or an institution depends upon the quality and quantity of service rendered. \\ c neither anticipate nor hope t<> be unusually favored by fortune, but are thoroughly persuaded that fortune favors the performer of worthy deeds and of unusual sen ice, and we therefore determine that our days and our years be occupied with such performance. Quality shall always be the first element of our service and quantity shall e\er be the second consideration. I hus shall we establish nor only the reputation but the character of servmp best and serving most. I hcrefore, by serving admirably, we shall deserve and re- ceive proportionately. The five resolutions formed our business policy; it was typewritten am! hound and ever}' man in the entire organization even,' officer, even,' di- rector, every workman signed ir. We had addi- tional copies struck oft" so that each man might carry one in his pocket as a kind of a rule hook for his guidance. We hung copies around the office and the shop. \\ e sent them to our agents. In short, we wanted everv human being with whom 44 Man to Man we came in contact to know what our policy was what we intended to live up to. Having adopted a policy I explained to the men that from that time forward we were going to run that institution together; that we were going to meet once a week, tell about anything we found wrong, and then devise a remedy. That from henceforth we were all going to work together; that they were not working for the president nor for the company but that every man was working with the company and the company with every man; that there was not a single question of any kind w r hich could not be brought up in open meet- ing and threshed out. That nobody was to go around nursing a grievance that instead he was to bring it right out in open meeting; that nobody was to be fired for anything that he said or did in meeting unless the meeting decided he should be fired; that the organization was to be a democ- racy run by all for all. I told them that they were going to save money under the new plan that they were going to get more work done; that it would not be a square deal for the company alone to take the money that they had saved but instead that we would split up the savings 50-50, that is, as the books Industrial Democracy 45 of the company showed savings in the cost of operation, the amount saved would he divided into two parts one would go to the company and the other would he distributed every two weeks to the men as a dividend on wages. They cheered and went to woik with a will. The very day of that meeting, six men called on the president. They said that their gang could spare a hand. That they had tried it our among themselves and the only thing that bothered them was that none of them wanted to lose a job; if any place in the factory could be found for the sixth man they knew they could make a saving. A place was found and they made the saving. At the end of the first month the force had cut costs of production 5 \ r / which meant a dividend equally to them and to the company. For several months they kept on with an average dividend of never less than 5^ and sometimes higher. They put their whole selves into the work. They had been working ten hours a day, six days a week. A resolution was offered that the working day should be nine hours. Immediately the objection was raised that it would not be fair to the company to ask for ten-hours' pay 46 Man to Man for nine-hours' work, that to make such a request would be violating the corner-stone of Justice. A workman spoke up: "If we can do in nine hours what we used to do in ten hours, then we can work nine hours and yet live up to our principles. The only way to find that out is to try it. I propose that we try the nine-hour day for a month." The meeting passed that resolution. The fac- tory turned out more work in the nine-hour day than in the ten-hour day; the piece workers who composed 83% of the force each individually made more money, and of course there was a bigger dividend than ever to cut up because of the "overhead" saving on the shorter day. After running along for some months on the nine-hour day, several of the more progressive spirits proposed the eight-hour day with a half day off on Saturday. But this was too much for the conservative piece-work element. Charlie, one of the best workers, announced definitely that he could not do in eight hours what he was now doing in nine and what he had been doing in ten. He was at his absolute limit and that if the hours were cut he was going to lose money. The company advocated the reduction to nine Iiulustri.il Democracy 47 hours anil also to eight hours. When Charlie had finished his speech the president asked him: "Do you nerd another press? Could you get more done if you had another press?" "No, I do not need another press." " Ho you need more nxjm ? Are you cramped ? " "No, I am not cramped." "Charlie," continued the president, "I know what is the matter with you. When you leave here you go home to a shop in your own house and you work there as hard as you can till II or iz o'clock at night. When you come here in the morning you are a tired man. You do not know that you are tired, you think that you are fresh, hut as a matter of fact you are tired. I think that you can do more than you an- doing if you cut out your outside work; and that you will make more money right here than you do now with your work outside and your work here." The meeting resolved to give the short day a two months' test. If, at the end of that time, the men's wages had fallen, or production costs had risen, breaking into the dividends, then they would go hack to nine hours. At the end of the first thirty days even,' piece worker in the plant received a bigger wage than 48 Man to Man he had ever previously earned and, in addition, there was an 8% saving on production and another wage dividend the best which had yet been de- clared. How did they do it? Did they slight the quality? No, quality was the first consideration. I heard a new man challenge a fellow-worker: "Bet you a cigar I can beat you done." "Not on your life," came back the reply, "a fellow's got to be careful on this job. You can't slight things around here; just get that idea out of your system and you'll last." The quality was so much better than before that the company could not keep up with its sales. The men made the savings by being interested in their work, by putting themselves into it, and by diverting all the thought and energy which they had formerly used in the development of the fine art of loafing to bettering the processes of manufacture. One of the most important parts of a piano is the sounding board. The wood must be exactly seasoned and it had always been thought that it had to be made by hand. Seven boards was considered good ten hours' work. The men de- Industrial Democracy 49 vised a machine to do the work better and quicker than by hand. I he president had it built accord- ing to their designs. It was shaped something like a banjo they called it "the banjo." With it one man easily turned out sixteen boards in an tight-hour day boards which were more uniform and in every way better than the hand-made ones! The spirit of "getting by" dropped our of that plant. At one of the meetings a workman sug- gested that the company employ an efficiency engineer to teach better methods. I his was startling enough in itself, because the very name "efficiency engineer" is anathema to the average union workman it brings up to him only inhuman and unhuman "speeding up." Hut the men took the suggestion seriously. They did not jeer. They had open minds. They discussed the pos- sibilities until one exasperated spirit burse out: "Hell, we have 268 efficiency engineers right here now!" That ended the idea of luring an outsider. The meeting voted to post signs "\\e have 268 efficiency engineers in this plant" the conserva- tives ruled out the emphatic introduction of the coiner of the slogan ;>s tending toward ribaldry. There were 268 employees and there were 268 50 Man to Man efficiency engineers ! They made themselves such. Look at this report. It came, not from high-priced specialists, but from the men in the power plant working as self-appointed industrial engineers. Would it be possible anywhere in the world to parallel it? I know you are interested about the cost of operating our power department and the savings that have been obtained in the last couple of years. In the year 1912 there was a great leak in the power department for the cost of coal in said year was $8,967.12 so our department started out to repair this leak, so we of our department all took upon our shoulders the responsibility of efficiency engineers, and by all pulling together we obtained 331 per cent, saving in 1913 or $2,735.15 as we had reduced the cost from $8,967.12 to $6,231.97. We also worked to better water conditions for the cost of city water in 1912 was $309.91 we reduced the cost in 1913 to 31.82 or a saving of 90 per cent, or $287.09 By reducing the amount of coal used we saved two men's labor, which men we placed in other departments. The way we saved those two men's wages was we cut do\vn from two firemen to one and that one fireman had it easier than either of the two firemen had it for we cut down from 4 boilers to 2 boilers and by re-arranging the pipes throughout the factory and around the boilers the one fireman had a nice position. The other man we done away with was a man hauling in coal and unloading it. How we done away with this man was by making a test on our boilers with a couple of different grades of coal and we found a coal that cost just as much but had Industrial Democracy 51 more H. and V. in it ami beside* they dehvr red our coal as we needed it and that saved the job of a nun hauling in the coal. I hrrr Wat another saving obtained through not uir.g *o much coal, for in the year of 191: we had to pay a man 4 oo a week for hauling away ashes whuh amounted to f>icA co a yrar. Now we can give all the ashrs away that %%r nuke and by letting the coal we found out that thr nld tual that we used to use went as high as 8 per cent, ashes. 1 he o>al we now use runs between -J-4 per rent, ashrs. The cost of coal per piano during the year of 191: was $4.98 per piano anil in the year of !'>n, 4 :''>. \Ye arc not stopping at thrsc figures for we h;;urc for the year of 1^14 to obtain a ^o per cent, saving in coal over the year l ( >i- and also to reduce the cost of coal per piano from 4 ';S to , 1:1 unc year's time we patched the leak in the power department to a preat extent, but this year we are going to put a gcxul patch on the leak. 1 he savings obtained in 1913 were as follows: Water '--; 09 Saved on ashes One fireman . One vaid man ::^ co . . . JCO 00 <-:o co Oil on engine " " CO Total ,M.' ~<> 14 There u> no use in stating what changes took place, to make these savings, but it shows ho'.v a few nun working as "p.e can get better results. And the boys are working their heads to make a 50 per cent, saving in fuel in this department this year, and nothing less will do. Below I will state the amount of piping and machinery in 52 Man to Man the factory and then will write two tests that we made, one in August, 1912, and the last on April 27, 1914. There is 4>6o5 feet of different size steam pipes or 62,608.07 square inches cross section area 26,832 feet pipe used in heating factory of which 25,338 linear ft. of I in. pipe used for coils the remainder i?494 feet is main lines leading to the coils There are 1,310,496 cubic feet of space in factory heated by 31,437 linear feet of steam and heating pipes 4 boilers area openings 106,643 sq. inches, area of steam lines taken off of boilers 48,899,338 There is six miles of steam and heat- ing pipes in the factory. Sizes of Lines taken of boilers: i~5in. line for a 150 H. P. Base Noncondensing engine 1-3! in. line fire pump 1-3 in. line for the heating system 2-2 in. glue lines 2-l| in. lines for two boiler feed pumps 1 1 in. line for 4 dry kilns 4 boilers 54 per cent, rated H.P 385 H. P. Builders Rating 7 hour test Tests made August 18, 1912 8200 Ibs. of coal fired 1165 " ashes 7035 " combustible matter 1171 " coal fired per hour 1005 " less ashes 43625 " water used 6232 Ibs. water per hour 698 cu. ft. of water 167 Ibs. of ashes per hour I4-9/-82% per cent, ashes Industrial Democracy 53 Economic results on thi* tc'.t arc I lt>. of t.I4 duration ol teif 7 hours franc C'reelt coal used Kconornic results I Ib. of C'oal to 1 1 J Ibs. of water (.'oal burned Jo '7 Ibs. Total evaporation 40,^00 Water per Ib. of coal 11.5 Ashes 11 ; ; I'er cent, ashes from coal 4-$ per cent. Rated II. P. bo.lers :H: 5 Rated H.I', generated during rest 60 per cent. Boiler room temperature 7H decrees Steam temp, in boilers 331 degrees Water temp, in boilers -IO degrees Coal burned per 11. 1'. : ,\ Ibs. H.I', developed 171 Today we are operating on two boilers easily and two years ago we had a hard job to run \vith four boilers with the same amount of piping in the factory but the.se results were obtained through using our heads as well as our hands. All the boys have it easier today than they e\er had it and get- ting better wages and less hours. 1 rorn your friend 1'. S. One of the Happy Family. This letter would do credit U-xcept for the Eng- lish) to any graduated mechanical engineer. Can you think of ordinary mechanics becoming so scientific? These men in the boiler room had been ordinary mechanics; to make good the "efficiency engineer" title they had studied the 54 Man to Man best practices in boiler economy. They studied every minute in order to make their jobs better. The average employer loses a deal of money through the unstable qualities of what is called "unskilled labor." It comes and goes like the four winds of Heaven. This company had its share of such trouble. The men themselves changed all that. They abolished "unskilled" labor. When you stop to consider it, all work is "skilled." Every job can be done well or ill. Skill can be used in anything. The unskilled laborers of the factory caught the ideas in the air and became skilled workmen. Truckers found that there was more than one way to load and haul a truck. Shovellers discovered that a shovel was something to conjure with. The man who did not have brains enough to make a skilled task of his job received instruction from those who did use their heads as more than supports for hats. The man who came into that shop and acted as if he were working for and not with the boss soon got his awakening. The men held a slacker as no better than a thief for he was stealing from them by helping to cut down dividends. The original trouble in this plant, the big Inclustri.il Democracy 55 quarrel, had been brought about, as ir.ual, by a reduction of piece rates. A worker never knows how to act on n piece rate. If he dors exceptionally well and makes a nigh wage, be is afraid that his rate will be cut; if he falls below a certain production, he fears tliar he will he fired. Therefore, since two fluids of all piece rates arc Set without exact knowledge, the average worker makes a game our of beating the rates. Some- times he wins and sometimes he loses. Neither be nor the management is ever satisfied. Hut here it was to the interest of the workers them- selves to have a fair rate. They knew that a fair rate would not be changed because they them- selves were the only people who could change it. The corner-stone of Justice insured fair dealing. Therefore they studied rates. One group had been producing units at 42 cents each. They devised certain ingenious jigs and also they cut out a deal of lost motion. After having given their improvements a fair trial they suggested that their rate be cut to II cents. At II cents each of these men is making more money than he did at 42 cents and with less physical labor I These remarkable savings and I have only "56 Man to Man spoken of a few of them were as nothing com- pared with the heightened morale of the force. The men were heart and soul for the company. It was their factory and their company, and they had a hand in governing it. There was no infor- mation that the weekly mass meetings could not have for the asking. But they were so absorbed in making a better company for themselves and getting their own dividends that they did not bother about any matter in which they could not assist. Only once did they go into any affair that did not involve strictly a production problem and that was in the year 1914. Everyone recalls the way that business was palsied by the outbreak of the Great War. The sale for pianos stopped. The warehouse began to fill up, the outlook ahead was dismal. The president did not want to shut down or run on part time because he did not want to inflict a hardship upon the organization; at the same time the company could not continue to manufacture at full speed without making sales. It was a delicate question. It bothered the presi- dent; he planned to present the whole case to the men. But he did not have to; the general assembly took it out of his hands. In September, 1914, a cabinet maker read this letter in meeting: Industrial Democracy 57 To TII r BOY* IN nir F.MTORV:- I he present MI .1 m >n and condition of the country do*--, not look very bright, and the general feeling 11, the worst u yt t to come; but let us hope jj.it. I take it for granted that we arc all interested in the welfare of this factory, and arc willing t male a little sacrifice for its interest and to put Mr. Bond at e.i-.r t know that we KDOV. what he does is for the be.sf. It is n>t a pleasant matter to tell us that we will shut tins part, or that p.irr. or the whole factory down for a few days, so when these conditions come up let us greet therein a cheerful way. Mr. Bond has proven a worthy master and if we trir.t lu:n at t'u- helm he will steer us through these troubled conditions. (I hat's Justice) As a suggestion, I think if we take a day or so off now and then would help a great deal. Take a day <>r two e .rra <>n Labor Day instead >( waiting and getting it all t;i one lump, what is hahle to follow if we don't. What do you suggest? Now is a chance to cooperate. (I hat's cooperation.) 'I he president was astonished. He was as- tounded at the animated discussion that followed. He realized that he was nearly an outsider at that meeting. Instead ot discussing how long tiie company could continue to pay full rates, the meeting took the attitude of inquiring how little the workers themselves could get on with until better times came around! First, all the foremen volunteered to reduce their own wages 25^, for the time being. Then the" meeting, after debate, decided that it would be more economical to work part of the week than 58 Man to Man to reduce the force and they proposed that the factory run only during three days of eight hours each. The president had to argue against such drastic economy. He assured them that they could get along on a four-day week. The work- men were not inclined to believe him, but, after he produced facts and figures, they gave in to the extra day to a four-day week. The factory went on under the limited schedule until times began to pick up in 1916. Out of the former force 168 men then remained. One hundred had been unable to meet expenses on the reduced wage and moved away from the town to take other jobs. They drifted off gradually and without disturbing the organization. As busi- ness began to liven, the president brought before the meeting the question of hiring additional men. He was opposed. The workers declared that for the present they could attend to every- thing and it would be time enough to talk of hir- ing new hands when they had more than they could do. Business increased; it is still increas- ing but more men were not hired. At the time of writing this account, the factory is doing a larger business than at any time in its history and the work is being done by 168 men. Irulustri.il Democracy 59 That is, these men have, in their role of efTi- ciencv engineers, so increased their individual and colU'Ctivc efficiencies that they are doing not only thai own woik hut more than the additional work that was formerly done by an extra hundred men. i hey are not speeding up, they ate not sighting quality. Not one of them is working hardir than he did before, hut hy employing their hrams to the very fullest extent, by making themselves a part of the company and the product they have gone to lengths that a few years ago would have been considered as wholly beyond possibility. The men are making money; the company is making money; the wages and the dividends as earned by the workers are larger than those earned by similar workers in any part of the country. They have made an institution. It is rare indeed for a man to leave for any reason other than death or disability. What is commonly known as labor turnover docs not exist and this, mark you, during a period when an alleged shortage of workers and the irresponsibility of "cost plus" contracts made by the Government has caused employers to bid recklessly for any man who could handle tools. The workers have their own family and they 60 Man to Man insist that every member of that family live up to the business policy of the company. If any one lags he is promptly informed of the fact and his own fellows suggest to him that he wake up or get out. If any man has a grudge against the manage- ment and prefers to mutter about rather than bring it up in meeting it is his fellow-workers who insist upon a showdown. .The meetings are now held monthly because not enough happened to require the continuance of weekly gatherings. They discuss all sorts of things; when they have nothing else to do they swap stories or just "hot air." Once they took it on themselves to investigate the president. He had not taken a vacation within their memory and they decided that he needed one. They passed a resolution granting the president three weeks' vacation and intimated that they expected the president to regard their wish in this respect as law. He declared that the company could not function without him. They came back with the assertion that they would do better without him. He took the three weeks' vacation. When he came back he found that all previous production and sales records had been beaten! This is in many respects an almost unbelievable Industrial Democracy 61 Story. It is wonderful to any one who has brcn accustomed to regarding the workman as a soul- less being, but it is not wonderful when one con- siders what is really at the base of good work. Let Mr. Bond, the president of the company, give his own explanation. He says: "\Ve used to build pianos. Then we stopped building pianos and began to build men they have looked after the building of the pianos. We have adopted as a slogan for the Packard Com- pany 'If there is no harmony in the factory there will be none in the piano." And so strongly does the president believe in his statement that it is the men, nor the company, who are responsible for the success that he hopes to devise ways and means for the men themselves to become so financially interested that they can guide and control the company. I cannot better summarize the results of the work here than the men themselves have done. They for- mally stated that a democratic administration, guided by fair business policy, has accomplished these ten things for them: I. Reduced working hours. ;. Increased the output. 3. Produced better instruments. 62 Man to Man 4. Increased workmen's income. $. Put the whole man to work. 6. Done away with misunderstanding. 7. Given each man a share of the responsibility. 8. Made real inventors of many workmen. 9. Instilled a spirit of genuine comradeship into the entire 'Organization. 10. Established a new kind of democracy. But what of the union trouble, what of the closed shop? What happened to the original grievances ? They got lost in the shuffle. There are no differences between the men and the company. The men have made their own wages higher than they could possibly ask through the union; they do not need outside rules because they make their own rules. The men and the company being one, no room has yet been found for an outsider to wedge into. "If there is no harmony in the factory there -will be none in the piano" CHAPTER IV OUT OK A CONFUSION OF TONGUES HOW did the superintendent of construction feel, what did IK- say, and what did he do when the curse of languages descended upon the Tower of Babel job ? Did lie make an effort to sort out and reorganize? Or did he just quit on the spot. Over at William Demuth & Co., at Brooklyn Manor, Long Island, we had nearly ever)' feature of the Biblical story except the tower. We had nine hundred men and women; about half were Italians, a quarter were Poles, and the remaining quarter covered nearly all other nationalities, with a very slight sprinkling of Americans. Many of the force could speak no English and those who claimed to speak English had very sketchy vocabu- laries which, under pressure, spluttered into their native tongues. The factor)' made smokers' pipes and had been founded sixty years before in a small way by \\il- ham Demuth when all pipes were being imported. 63 64 Man to Man It had grown steadily until it produced a majority of the smoking pipes sold in the United States; it had spread from a little back room in lower Manhattan to a splendid modern building in a Brooklyn suburb. In the beginning it employed foreign pipe makers; there are only a few pipe factories in this country and few native pipe makers, so it was very seldom that trained workers could be hired. The operators must be trained. The work of making a briar pipe is not arduous but it is tedious. Here roughly is the process. The briar wood comes in various rough shapes and sizes and often has many natural imperfections. The pieces are sorted to size and shape and then roughly cut into a pipe form which is called a "stummel." The stummel is then bored and goes on to be formed and polished. The forming is done by hand against whirling disks covered with sandpaper. In this process various knot or insect holes are uncovered and these must be patched with a special kind of putty which will take a stain and blend into the coloring of the wood. A high-grade pipe has no patches and a cheap briar many of them. It is the perfection of the wood as well as the workmanship that largely determines the quality. The finished bowl Irulustri.il Democracy 65 goes on to he mounted with a base or precious metal and finally to have an amber, hard ni!)her, hone, bakelite, or other hir inserted. 'Hie com- pany makes pipes ftoin woods other than briar and also from meerschaum, hut all materials go through substantially the same process except that meerschaum and calabash require most delicate handling. Most of the work has to be done by hand and even a slight mistake will either ruin the stummel entirely or at least take dollars of! the selling price. Americans do nor shine ar careful hand labor; the industry is an imported one anyway and ir has always drawn its labor largely from the immigrants who used to flock into New York. Until the Great War shut off immigration, labor conditions were not serious. Men or women could always be had and although they came and went, the wages were high enough and other jobs sufficiently chrhcult in the getting, to hold a work- able force. But war conditions brought a change. These operators weir highly skilled in one task; they could in normal turns work outride only as laborers and main' ot them wi re too slight phys- ically for the outdoors; bur when the demand for war workers became threat, and anv one could 66 Man to Man get a job at high wages, they drifted away to the munitions plants. We fondly imagine that our immigrants come to us to be under the flag of Liberty. Some of them do. But the majority come for the dollar and with a fixed intention of going back again when they have enough dollars. They work solely for the high dollar. They care for their employer in so far as it affects the number of dollars earned. We have taught them to put the dollar ahead of the work by treating them as impersonal things to be rented as cheaply as possible. It is not strange that the Russians who went back for the revolution found nothing to praise and much to blame in our institutions; they had seen the United States through a sweat shop window. This particular factory was not a sweat shop in any sense; it had above the average amount of light and air. The workers were treated well much better than in any institution I know of employing foreign help but they bore an imper- sonal relation to the company. And when high wages were offered outside, they left. New employees had to be hired and they were pro- gressively of a lower and lower class the men and women who were too ignorant to find better jobs Industrial Democracy 67 or who stopped in at the factory only until they could get something better. They were unruly; few cared if the work were good or bad. I hey were content to "get by" except for a sprinkling ol older men who had been employed for years and were past the age when they could venture to seek outside employment. '1 hesc men did their work well by habit; but there were precious few of them. The problem was to get this polyglot crowd interested in their work, to make them one with tin- company, to introduce a spirit of cooperation which would reflect higher and happier pay for the men and a better product for the company. It was a serious problem. I know that one concept is international; that every human being, every dumb animal responds to it. It is expressed in the one word fustier. If that idea could be sent across, no longer would there be a problem. Hut how couKl ir be pur into the nnmU of men who knew not Justice; who had buit their backs to injustice horn the day of their birth; whose nearest word to it was revenge 1 It could not be established by preaching. 'I hese people were elemental. They could learn only from example. If we wanted Justice, Coopera- 68 Man to Man tion, Economy, Energy, and Service, we should have to "show them." If I could establish Justice as a principle for daily guidance, every other matter would adjust itself. I brought all of the people together in the biggest department of the factory to try to explain Justice as a living, breathing guide. It is not so difficult to meet and overcome op- position when it is articulate. Then at least you have something definite to combat. But with a crowd such as this the opposition was sullen and unintelligent. Many could not understand ( what I tried to tell them, while others, I think the majority, had become so accustomed to having things "put over" on them in their daily life that they were frankly suspicious and hostile. We commonly do not realize that our welcome to the immigrant consists in "taking him in," in "hand- ing him something good." I sensed all of these things in the air. I should have been relieved had a few men spoken against the plan had ac- tively opposed it. But they did nothing of the sort; they just sat around and listened; some blankly while others glowered. We adopted the first corner-stone of Justice unanimously, it is true, but without other than formal enthusiasm. The Iiultistri.il Democracy 69 Italians cheered because they naively like a cele- bration; tin- Poles said nothing. I explained the dividend .system; just how we intended to work together - that we should nor only govern ourselves but that of all the savings made in the cost of production, one-half \\<>uM go to the company and the other half t<> them. They asked a few questions about this a frv, details of the hoax they suspected we should play on them. They did not believe me. 1 he- more experienced men in the crowd had long been familiar with the promises of political candidates and, since we were going to have a kind of political orgam/ation, I think they took it for granted that it would be managed along political lines and therefore no promises whatsoever would be kept. In successive weeks we adopted a business policy defining and adopting, after Justice, tin- three main corner-stones of Cooperation, I.con- omy, and Energy, and finally the cap-stone of Service. Tlu-n we organi/td, with this policy as a kind of constitution, a government on the same lines as that of the United States. \\ c formed a Cabinet consisting of the executive officers of the company with the president e-t tin- company as president of the cabinet. 1 he legis- 70 Man to Man lative bodies were a Senate made up of depart- ment heads and foremen, and a House of Repre- sentatives elected by the employees. The elec- tions to the House were by departments one representative for each 25 employees, or, in the case that a department had less than 20 employees, it combined with another small department. The various bodies elected their own oftcers and adopted by-laws covering their procedure. The House had as officers, a President, a Vice President, a Secretary, and a Sergeant-At-Arms; and these standing committees: Program, Imperfect Mate- rial and Poor Workmanship, Suggestions, Public- ity, Safety, Flag, and Educational. The official make-up of the Senate was similar to that of the House. I tried to make it clear to everybody that hence- forth we should be governed exactly as the coun- try in which we are living is governed. They were told that all complaints, all grievances, all disputes over rates or wages, should be presented to their representatives in the House who would take them up in meeting, and after a fair and open discussion, try to arrive at a just decision. That all laws and measures affecting the conduct of the factory would have to pass the House and Senate Iiulustri.il Democracy 71 and be approved by the Cabinet. That they were now under democratic rule under tin it own rule, and they were expected to make light use of the powers that had been given to thtin. 1 his aroused at least .some interest. 1 think that most of them were cuiious to know what was going to happen. I cannot say that they had moie than a cunositv. Without knowing it, they began to wotk a little better than they had, for at the end of the first two weeks we found that we could distribute a dividend. 1 hat dividend was real evidence! Their initial interest was purely financial. These people had no practical and precious little theoretical conception of democracy. The Poles had bxX-n born under the rule of old Russia. They knew law and government only as some- thing which restricted and punished. Represen- tative government meant nothing to them; they had heard vaguely of various assemblies but had never discovered that the form ot government made much difference in their actual condition. Of course they had lived in the I'mted States; some of them were naturalized and had voted; but without any particular idea of what it all meant certainly without a conception that the 72 Man to Man voter was the ultimate ruling power. They were in America to make more money than at home. They cared little for theory any one might have the theory, they would take the cash. For co- operation in the abstract they cared not at all. The dividend taught cooperation. For instance, a number of men decided to celebrate an Italian holiday. They stayed out. At the next meeting of the House of Representatives it was announced that the dividend would be only 12% but that it would have been higher had not so many men taken a holiday. That is, a man who earned $20 a week got a dividend of $2.40 instead of $3.00 he lost 60 cents because some other fellows did not work. It is one thing to leave a shop knowing that only the company and yourself will lose money by your act, but it is quite another matter to realize that your fellow-workmen also lose money money they need. The dividends are the most practical and forceful argument for cooperation. They reduce talk to the universal common denominator to saying something like this: "Because Pete and Tony stayed out three days you fellows lost 20 cents each." The workers ventured into industrial democracy searching for cash; they stayed because they Iiidustri.il Democracy 75 liked the idea. 1 lu y saw and learned but slowly. I he representative s\ su -m dul nor work smooth- ly. Some of those- \vh<> h.ul !u-< n elected did not attend, while others fc-Il oil in th< ir attendance because their fellow-workmen, although electors, jeered at them. 'I he House member, \\i ir Mipn- sensitive they were as temperamental ;r, pinna donnas. 1 he minutes show some ol the tM.r^Ks. Heie is what one session of the House had to con- tend with: Miss F.uvre stated th.it slu- li.ul interviewed Mr. Cortegiano who s.iul th.it owing to the trouble lie .'i.ui \\ith Mr. 1 rtink thrcr NM-cLs .i^>>. In- thought it \MM r t > ii M.-M, ar.d tin- f.u t that a rivort.1 of this nn\-up h.ul !>cin nuhulcd in the r;;i:;utcs of th.it incrtinu, lu- h.ul iltviJril t-> re-' -:\. It" I'M, h..il iK-t been .uKlcil t" tin- initmtrs. In- \\msul n"t \\is!i t-> itM^n. Mr. 1 home rrptirti-d th.it Mr. Cortt-pi.mo s.iul that lu- \\as not smart enough to nunglc with the other represent. iti\ r< f and that, as this was n<> government house, he tlioup.h.t it un- necessary to hand in an official resignation a:ul h.ad just st.i\ed away from the meetings. 'I he President was of the opinion th.:t t!.;> \vjs a >i^n of in- suhordination. The committee was instructed to till Mr. (/orte^uno t!iat the minutes of each meeting must con^^t "t e\erythmg that is performed at each meeting, and that this is an unreasonable excuse; also to assure Mr. Cortegiano that he is perfectly welcome to come back to the House. Miss r.iivre v, as di- rected to report at the next meeting. 74 Man to Man Mr. Reina of the Polishing Dept. handed his resignation to the President, which read as follows: "I beg to present to you my resignation as representative of the Polishing Dept. for the following reasons: "Friends who desire an increase in the price of pipes come to me continually. Mr. Steiler and myself spoke about this to the foreman who told us that all the men desiring an in- crease should give in their names, and he would give them to Mr. Feuerbach. We accordingly did this and gave the foreman a list. After a few hours, he feared to present the list to Mr. Feuerbach. The workers became indignant and demanded my resignation. I believe it is superfluous to add that the increase is asked on account of the exceeding high cost of living. (signed) GIOVANNI REINA." Mr. Reina and Mr. Steiler explained that this had hap- pened over two weeks ago, and no reply had been received. The meeting said that this was an injustice on the part of the foreman; it was wrong to direct Mr. Reina to make up a list, and then do nothing in reference to it. It was moved that the House should not accept the resignation of Mr. Reina, as he was doing his duty. Mr. Moll seconded this motion, and the resolution was carried. A few members quickly caught the theory of representative government. Of course at first they believed that the whole idea was a fake. They came to show us up, but they turned out to be the real constructive force. They had to be convinced; but once they had a conviction of our sincerity, they were willing to go to any length to make the experiment a success. They knew Industrial Democracy 75 and were in touch with the mass; they knew the mass psychology. I or instance, half a dozen men who could nor speak Knghsh walked our. We took it up at a House meeting. ( )ne of t!u- "agitators" explained "These fellows do not speak F.nghsh. All that they know how to do when they do not like any- thing, is to strike. That is the only way they can express themselves." The House appointed a committee to investi- gate and traced the whole trouble to some trivial error of allotment in the work; it had not been called to the attention of the head of the depart- ment. The committee hunted up the men, talked to them in their own language, and had them back within a few hours. This incident brought up the importance of having a single language in the plant instead of half a do/en. I he House was discussing a house ^rgan for general circulation m the factory. Read the minutes: Someone asked whether it would he advisahlc to hive the" paper printed in different languages. 1 he people who live in this country must speak Lnglish some time and they might as well learn now. It we keep on punting in different lan- guages the people will not learn to speak Knglish. \S c ought to print it in one language only English. 76 Man to Man Take another case. It is the custom in nearly all factories employing foreign-born people to post signs in the varied tongues of the workers and some foremen are retained largely because of their knowledge of the languages. The representatives decided that this practice must be changed. They resolved that all foremen should give instructions in English and only in English. That the same rule should apply to all notices; that this was to be known as an English-speaking shop and that any one who did not understand the language should learn it. To help those who wanted to learn, they asked the company to provide classes for the teaching of English. These classes are now doing splendid work. They were determined that no dividends were going to be lost in that place just because some of the people could not understand what was going on. Unhesitatingly I say that the dividends were the first feature of the new plan to awaken interest they were our first "point of contact." It is not cynical to say that the easiest way to reach any one's heart is through his pocketbook, though it must be borne in mind that merely putting money into a pocketbook does not, in natural sequence, Iiultistri.il Democracy 77 reach the hcait ami attract the interest. Increas- ing wages may cause tin- recipient to think that \ ou are generous, more than likely it \\ill convince him that you ate an "easy maik." Neither con- viction makes for good work, \\ages must he based on service rendered. An overpaid man lias as little of the cooperative spirit as one who is underpaid. That mass of men awakened to the knowledge that there was justice in tins world through the stimulation of the pay and dividend envelopes. But not because of the contents because of the essential justice of the sums. A group claimed that their rates were unjust, that with a certain style of pipe, a man might make a third more in a day than with another style; thus the distribution ot work and not the ability of the workman controlled the day's wages. Under the old system this complaint until J have been directed to the foreman and he would have said "Yes" or "No" and his answer would have been final, t ruler the new system the complaint went to a representative and he brought it up he- tore the House. I he House appointed a commit- tee, they fully investigated and tendered a report stating just how and why the rates were incorrect 78 Man to Man and recommending certain changes. The bill then went to the Senate, was passed by it, and finally approved by the Cabinet. The origi- nal complainants grasped the justice of all this. Not only were they satisfied with the specific action but they found a sense of future security. Other wage complaints came up, were similarly investi- gated, and decisions arrived at. Some of the decisions were affirmative and others negative. Formerly, when a foreman refused, discontent had followed. But the force of public opinion now sustained the democratic decisions. Slowly the spirit of justice began to percolate thro ^h the organization. The mass awakened; the foremen awakened; all of them began to realize that there were merits in self-government. The people learned that they had their destinies in their own hands. The foremen learned they could make good showings in their departments only by leading and not by driving the people under them. The superintendent of the factory began to thaw out. He had held that the factory force was a working army and should be ruled with stern, military discipline. But jus- tice got him! He mellowed; he began making, al- though at sufficiently long intervals, remarks that Industrial Democracy 79 were not reprimands. And as he progressed on the road to humanity so, keeping pace with his own progress, went his popularity and authority. Where he had been hated he was liked, and no- body appreciated the change more than did he himself. In the patching department, where they putty up the defects in the lower grade pipe bowls, was a group of middle-aged Italian women. They all had hair-trigger dispositions and, their work being monotonous, were always on edge for excite- ment. 1 heir leader was Rosa, a brawny Amazon of perhaps 34 with flashing eyes set in a round, swarthy face out of which could race countless words per second. I had taken pains to make myself popular with Rosa and her companions; I knew that their force for destruction might, rightly directed, make for construction. We had in a committee meeting been discuss- ing poor patching. I asked one ot the Committee- men to point out to Rosa that she was not patch- ing to the best advantage. He did not like the assignment but I promised to join him in the department. I entered perhaps a minute after him. I saw a wild Rosa on her feet. "You no like mv work?" she shouted. "Come 8o Man to Man on, girls," and in an instant the whole department was up, rallying around Rosa. The Committee-man hurried to Rosa, glaring and defiant, at the head of her cohorts. Just as though she had been a child he took her arm: "Aren't you ashamed, aren't you going to try to help me when I'm trying to help you? Aren't you ashamed to act this way?" She stopped talking. She dropped into a chair and I saw that she was crying. "I do so bad. You speak so kind." The House investigated and this is what the minutes show: Miss Bachman came down with firsts, light seconds and good seconds that were broken out pretty good. The patch- ing was all right but the cavity was too big. We spoke to that one woman and she had a whole lot to say. They are getting sick of us. Miss Bachman went off and I started going my rounds the same as usual trying to teach them how to take the defects out. I kept on until I came to one woman with a dozen pipes very bad putting them aside and taking only the good ones she started in to argue they were all bad. I was talking to someone else and she was still talking. All at once she held up her hand and said "Stop." I asked what was the matter. She said she was going on the strike so I told her to sit down and not do anything like that. Mr. Smith (the foreman of that department) may have been a good piece worker but is not any good as a foreman. The House of Representatives therefore recommends that Mr. Iiuliistri.il DcmcKTacy Si Smith of tlir patching department be given an opportunity t'i work in viinr other department of thu plant. ri"t 4 fore- man because \%e consider tint tir is not a profitable foreman, tli.it in tiis place thrie should l>r put .1 new foreman of tlic patching department. \\ c recommend Mr. 1 run It and we, the members of the House of Rrprcsrntatix rs, hereby guar- antrr to linn our lull su;utr arul coopcf ation to aid him in making that department a succ'ess. In the minutes of the next meeting, the result of the change is Set down: With one or two I had a lot of trouble. One of the women sj>caks pretty p>d Hnfjlish and she explained everything. It is real hard. I' ro;n nu\v on things will run altogether dif- ferent. In .i!>out a couple of weeks we will sec tjuitc an improvement m t!u- pipes. Mr. Trunk st.ifc-l th.it he thought he would have sonic trouble with the Italian women but Cantoni (a Representa- tive) told v>me of t!ie:n tliat Mr. I rnnk w.is a pood man and now the worst ha\e turned out best. Mr. Schmidt moved that we extend a vote of thanks to Mr. Cantoni for co- operating with Mr. I r;mk. In other words, the House of Representatives, composed of workers, recommended the removal of a foreman because he was incompetent! Alter that a foreman held his place only it he were just and competent and no just and competent fore- man was removed. 1 hat put the workers and the supervisors in the n^ht relation. In the he- gmning the workers had been all aid to complain to their representatives about a foreman and it 82 Man to Man they did the representative was fearful of taking the complaint before the House lest it might come to the ears of the foreman and he would be hazed; a workman fears, more than a discharge, the ill- will of the foreman. It took some time to let both the workers and the foremen know that complaints were, in a measure, impersonal and stimulants to better business. The labor turnover throughout the plant was serious; as soon as the Representatives and Sena- tors realized that this affected dividends, they investigated. They found that in the sand- papering department, which was the largest, 75% r more of the workers left or were discharged within a period of 12 months. Often men taken on in one day, one left the same day, two the next day, three stayed about three weeks, and the re- maining four left gradually over a period of six weeks, all stating that the work was too hard for the money. The work was hard and disagree- able, involving the shaping of the pipe against a high-speed convex disc covered with sandpaper. There are various grades to the work, one group using a very rough quality of sandpaper, the next a somewhat finer quality, and so on until the pipe becomes perfectly shaped and absolutely smooth. Industrial Democracy 83 The work is expert because not only must the eye judge the proper shaping, but the hands and wrists of the operator have to be very flexible to make quickly the necessary turns and twists with just the right pressure of the pipe against the wheel. Klderly men are too stiff jointed to learn the work, so the recruits are drawn from boys ranging be- tween 18 and 25. The work is dusty and tedious and does not appeal to the better class of young men. As a rule, less than half of the men in the department know more than a few words of Eng- lish. Yet it is a critical section. They can make or mar the pipe. The least slip of the operator's hand will ruin the "stummel" beyond repair, but if the sandpapering department is not working to capacity every department after it is held up. Commonly about 125 men are employed; the best of them will earn on piece rates between $50 and 40 a week with an average of about 24. 'I here is no fund of skilled labor to draw on for vacancies. The raw man must be taken in and taught and of course he has to be paid while being taught. The initial rate of pay is below that of the lowest piece worker; a beginner goes on piece rates when his output at piece work exceeds the weekly flat wage at which he began. It formerly took a long tims 84 Man to Man to make even a second-class operator, and because of the long training at low wages, less than 20% of the new men stuck through to go on piece rates. The personnel was constantly shifting and the foreman in that department was always at his wits' end to keep up production. Calculating that it cost the company $100 to train a sandpaperer, which investment was lost when the man left, it was demonstrated that the company lost through the year in this single de- partment an amount of money, which, if saved, would pay about $14,000 in a dividend to the employees. Those figures impressed the sandpaper shop. They set about finding ways and means to get the dividend. Their first step was to cut down the training period. They suggested that certain of the men be employed to teach newcomers. The result was that new men found themselves making a satisfactory wage on piece rates at the end of about three months. It became a matter of mo- ment when a worker said that he was going to quit; his fellows got around him, tried to find out what the trouble was, and to persuade him to stay. Their whole attitude toward each other changed. Formerly they had gangs and cliques, Iiulustri.il Democracy 85 especially flu- Italians; if a man became unpopu- lai lu- had to get out and if he did not get out In- was apt to pet hurt. Hut all of that ended \\hen they found that forcing a worker out was money out of pocket. That put quite a different face on it. 1'irsr, they found that it was finan- cially better to have harmony; then they dis- covered it was a nicer way to work. The ordinary workman just "pets by." He. Seldom suggests new improvements. In the beginning he may think of how to do something better but when he makes Ins suggestion to the foreman he finds that it is not welcome and there- after he keeps to himself any ideas he may have. Foremen are constitutionally opposed to change. '1 he Senate and the House appointed a joint Com- mittee on Suggestions and made a schedule of prices with further rewards ar the discretion of the Cabinet. They got suggestions. '1 he making of pipes had been more or less static. So much of the work is done by hand that it has adhered pretty closely to the practices ot tin- t Kl country. I' or instance, someone hail, years before, invented a machine for the rough cutting of the block which later becomes a pipe. I asked it it were a satisfactory machine. 86 Man to Man "Yes," was answered proudly. "We have not had to change or improve it in 25 years." There were quite a number of these machines. I felt that no machine had so nearly attained per- fection that it could not well be changed in a quarter of a century. And surely enough, once the suggestion idea got about, an employee came forward with a plan for a new machine. It was built according to his designs. One man with this machine does as much as six men operating six of the old machines. The polishing and buffing of a meerschaum pipe is a highly delicate operation which has always been performed by hand. The foreman of that department devised a machine to replace the hand movement. He demonstrated that one man with it was more than equal to three hand workers. The foreman of another department, a man who had been making pipes for at least 40 years, examining the little device, said: "This is the best thing I have ever seen in pipe making." Look at a few more improvements that came from the men. An improved chuck for boring rubber bits increased the production about 300% and did not require expertness in operation. The old boring machine could be managed only by an Industrial Democracy 87 experienced workman. A first-rate man could mount 15 do/rn bakehtc bits a day. Using an improved screw, the same man now mounts three gross per day and the improved scu\v will wear better and longer than the old on. Muslin buffs soon become hard and lose their effective- ness. Formerly they were cleaned and roughened with sandpaper and a knife. After this rough cleaning they were not satisfactory; nor a few- were cut in the handling and ruined. A buffer made a tool with which he could both clean and roughen a buff in a few seconds and the reno- vated buff was as good as new. Under the old process of staining Congo pipes, the production was 12 gross a day. Under a new process, the production became 109 gross. Meerschaum pipes have to be finally polished after the ferrules are in place; all gold work had to be by hand because machine polishing scratched the gold. A foreman designed a metal device. 'I he best that a good female polisher could do under the old system was three dozen a day. The work required no par ticular skill, high wages could not be paid, and the hand polishers were always discontented. I sing the new protector and a machine one woman can now turn out from 15 to 18 dozen a day or the 88 Man to Man output equivalent of five or six girls under the former method. Go back to the patching department. The men discovered that far too many seconds and thirds were coming through. Their dividends lay in "firsts." A joint Committee of the House and Senate took up the subject. They visited the patchers. It had been the custom of the patchers to rim out a knot hole with a sharp knife and then fill the cavity with a special kind of putty. They might thus carelessly turn a small hole into a big one and transform a potential first or second into a bad third. Skill had never been at a premium in that department. A hole was just a hole. Then the committee began to plan changes to become efficiency engineers. They decided that instead of a rough task this was really one requiring an artist. If a dentist could fill a tooth so that the filling would remain, could they not similarly plug a hole in a bit of wood? They took a page from the dentist's book. They turned hundreds of former seconds into firsts and former thirds into seconds. Under piece rates the workers press for quantity. A company makes its money out of quality. The emphasis in this factory was placed on quality; Inciiistri.il Democracy 89 Through the dividend svstrm the men came to know that although rushing their work and turn- ing out inferior goods might increase their indi- vidual pay it would so decrease the mass dividend that their net return would he less than if they had devoted themselves to perfect goods. From the minutes cf the House: Miss Madeline Wojtyniak said that the piece workers Am- orally rush their work, in order to earn more money; therefore, the work is not as goe appointed to look into the condition* and that gix>ds should be examined before they are polished. If the week-workers are doing the ri^ht thing the House should know it. 1 here is about 16,000 at stake, and \\e arc either pomp to save it, or continue to lose it. A committee should be appointed who understands this work, who would >;ct to- gether, investigate, and bring in reports. Perhaps the cure for these men is better supervision, one who will teach his people what is necessary to make Roods ri^ht. Whatever ideas the committee have should be presented to cure this defect. \\ ho pets out the greatest amount of imperfect goods' Suggest that there is a cure for this by all people being put on piece work, or week work, whichever the case may be. Then the matter can be taken up with the Senate after the reports are in. They did attain quality and also production in a most remarkable fashion. One department had a former record of 25 gross of pipes a week with three men working. Thev increased their 90 Man to Man force to ten men and attained an average of 50 gross a day. One man turned in a record of 240 gross of pipes in one week beating all former records. The sandpapering department increased its wages through increased production by 10% and on the quality side there was an even greater improvement. The big production in spite of poor material is in "firsts" and "seconds" while before "thirds" and "fourths" were heavily represented. The whole product of the company has gone to a considerably higher plane than ever before. The stress has been on quality that has been first. Quantity has come, as a matter of course but it has come. And this quantity arrived during shorter work- ing hours. They had been working 53 hours. Then they reduced to 50 with a 10% increase in production. Now they are experimenting with a 48 hour week. They are doing all this them- selves and at the same time watching dividends. They have touched iy|% in dividends and they intend to go higher. They have an esprit de corps. They have designed service buttons. They compete by departments for efficiency rec- ords the leading department holds the Stars and Stripes for a two weeks' period. And they Iiulustri.il Democracy 91 ft^lit hard tor that flag! The buffers have pledged themselves to do 50 pross of pipes tf> a hufi us their contribution toward saving material in war tune. They now use three where they had used four hufls. And so it goes. Hut inatk. this. That factory formerly could hardly pet its complement. Now, with labor even scarcer, it has a waiting list! CHAPTER V THE SUPERVISION THAT COUNTS THE Committee on Seconds of the Shelton Looms found annually going into the ware- house a great pile of fine velvets worth $500,000 at least they would have been worth that sum were they perfect. But they were not perfect each piece had one or more defects. The best material had gone into them; they had absorbed the usual amount of power in fabrication, they had taken their share of the big overhead expenses, but, be- cause someone had been careless, these splendid stuffs could not be sold as the trademarked product of the company. Of course the management knew of this waste; the foremen, too, knew about it; but neither they nor the weavers realized what it all meant they did not stop to think that the big output of seconds had a direct influence upon wages and the steadiness of work, nor that if the company did not make standard goods, it could not earn prof- its. The company did make standard goods and Industri.il Democracy <)$ :t tin! earn piohts; doing a business exceeding ten million a year, the loss on halt a million of defec- tive production was not serious in a financial sense. Hut it was serious as a waste which might be avoided. Sidney Hlumenthal & Co. owns the Slulton Looms. 1 hey had for years tried in every fashion to be fair with their employees. They paid cur- rent wages and worked current hours. They had tine, modern factory buildings and were not behind in any improvement. It could never be said of them that they were penny wise and pound foolish in dealing with any phase of their business. They had never had acute labor trouble or more than the usual and commonplace disagreements with their men. Hut they had not found a suffi- ciently responsive chord in the workers. And as a consequence they did not have the cooperation of the workers. Their people worked for them and with the inevitable result -a proportion ot pro- duction which could not sell as tirsr-grade goods. Located in the Housatonic Valley in Connecticut they were in the big war work /one. Ansonia, Bridgeport, New Haven, and other munition towns were calling tor workers and offering high wages. Other looms in the valley and near by 94 Man to Man were short of men. Anybody who could do any- thing could get a job and a weaver especially found work calling from a dozen directions. The Shelton Looms make fine velvets which require extraordinary care in every process. The good run from the very highest to a high medium grade; they make no cheap fabrics. Some of the fabrics are condemned for even the slightest flaw. It is high-class textile work in which small mistakes cause big losses. But the workers were not afraid of losing their jobs and they cared little if they did make mistakes. If a foreman tried to enforce discipline, the worker quit confident that he could get another job before sundown. They ^were not interested in any one job; they had no interest in anything but a pay envelope and they cared as little who provided the pay as they did who made the envelope. Weavers are natural floaters; it is their heritage. They are accustomed to being laid off in dull seasons; they normally expect to go from place to place. They have never felt that any one was particularly interested in their going or coming and finally, most of them expect to live and die as weavers. About 35% of the i, 800 employees spoke imperfect English and a fair percentage spoke no English whatso- Industrial Democracy 95 ever. Very few of them had any idea of democ- racy or saw any reason to cooperate with the company. Such was the soil in which the seeds of democracy were sown. In the former chapters I have largely described what was accomplished in each case. Here let the people themselves do the telling let the minutes of the Senate and the House tell the story of what was done to better the quality of produc- tion. They give an idea, reading between the lines, of the spirit of industrial democracy: (Mr. Richards): "I have a little matter here in regard to which I would like to say a few words. Mr. Blumenthal had me on the 'phone this morning and said 'Mr. Richards, you gave me an estimate indicating that from Sept. iqth you would do certain things. In other words, you would pro- duce so many pieces of "first" grade and other qualities.' I said, 'Mr. Blumenthal, you arc correct, but we have not lived up to our estimate. ' He said, 'Give me the reasons.' I told him I would let him see the reasons on paper. In the first place, we promised or estimated that we would produce 800 pieces of the ' first* quality for which we had taken orders and had obligations to deliver. Also 75 pieces of lonq pile and IOO pieces of long pile silk Blushes nearly 1,000 pieces to be turned out. Since that time we have kept records which show that we produced the first week 4:8 pieces instead of 800 47 " _ " " 7; and none of the one hundred promised. "That is about 60' '[ . My promise was based upon 70% 96 Man to Man efficiency of the finishing room and dyehouse mainly the finishing room. The statement shows distinctly that we are not even 35% efficient. So it goes on. I have it for three weeks. The second week was a little better but not up to 50%. Last week we fell down again. There are a good many reasons for it, which can be attributed to the weaving, dye- house, and finishing room. Through the weave room out of a total of 733 pieces we had to mark 288 pieces the 'second' quality instead of 'first,' which did not enable us to fill the orders we had. In the first place, we have been falling down about 50% on our estimated production. Be- sides that, we have made a second quality instead of a first quality which we were supposed to turn out. This is a se- rious situation. "These matters are very vital to our business. I suggest that this matter be taken up by the House and a special committee appointed to look into the matter. I do not know whether the committee should include men from the finishing room or away from the finishing room. I leave it to the House. If we want to keep our business we must be able to fulfill obligations and orders on a certain date when due and with goods properly made." The House Committee brought in a report and here is how the House discussed it. Much of the talk is technical, but the interest of the people is apparent. They are on their mettle. One representative thought that part of the trouble was due to the weavers not using powder on their hands; another believed that keeping material wrapped in tissue paper would cure the trouble. Finally the discussion narrowed down Industrial Democracy 97 to whether thr winders or the weavers were ar fault. They recommitted the report to the com- mittee to discover whether or not all were not at fault and with a positive instruction to locate the exact cause or causes before the next meeting. They went into various other defects of the goods such as the "machine marks." One representa- tive said that they were due to a failure to handle the loom correctly and that attention to merely one bad practice had eliminated nearly 50^,' of the marks within ten days. '1 he committee gave in detail the numerous tests they had made to locate the reason for machine marks and the various other defects, and recommended that certain conclusive tests might be made. Others thought that a contributing cause was carelessness in the care of the spools. Here is the discussion on that point. (Mr. Kenn): "Mr. President, in the many trips I have made through the Winding Department, I flunk tli.it they could et a Kod l).jsrh.ill team out of there. 1 hi-y throw the spools mt> boxes about tuc teet aw.:}'. You could not Jo that with a COVIT on." (Mrs. WVM>): "I haven't much to S.TV except th.u it would be wasting time to push the boxes around and put the spools in." Mrs. \\ y.M) explained that the bo\ of vp.ii!-, V..K brought 98 Man to Man over to a girl who packed them in cases to go to the warping room. She stated that there was clean paper on the boxes. (Mr. Hoson) : "It is cleanliness we are after. It is one of the things to success in business. I think the winders could soon adapt themselves to these." (Miss Morris): "There are about 50 spools in a box and we would have to push them up and down an alley." (Mr. Hoson): "What do you do with the boxes now?" Miss Morris explained that they kept enough spools on the frame so that they could pick them up when they wanted them and that the box was kept at the end of the aisle. (Mr. Kenn): "That's one of the things we are trying to eliminate. That's where the oil comes from." (Miss Morris): "There is no oil on the frames." (Mr. Meek): "I make a motion that you appoint a com- mittee to investigate this matter." Motion Seconded. Voted. Remember this discussion is not at a meeting of high-priced technical experts. These are ordinary workers talking men and women of the rank and file using their whole brains to discover why the product is not better. And they are not being paid for the investigation it had simply never been put up to them before to remedy their own defects ! See how they get at the bottom of things in a way that an executive could not. Here is another meeting they are still discussing the elimination of "seconds." (Mr. Shine): "Regarding piece work and a bonus for quality against daywork. In the first place, day rates would Iiuiustri.il Dc.noeracy 99 be very hard to eitabh\h in the weave hrd when one con- udert the tvpr of men there. It would IK- one cntinual turmoil for the foreman and any one to try to maintain peace under a day rate sytlem. Here is the tendency in day work. Suppose you give two men $10 a djy and nay 'I wjnt perfect goods. Make what you consider a fair day's production but make it perfect.' Hie nr\t djy one fellow makes 8 yards and the other 10 yards. I he fellow making IO yard* will jay, ' I he other fellow made only 8 yardt.' He will consider it an unjustice, and may not kick but will cut down his production to 8 yards. On a piece work basis, with a bonui for qualitv. a man produces say 10 yards. 'I here is $5.00. Suppose we have a quality bonus of 30% for perfect quality. Suppose the minor defects arc allowed to get by. Suppose it takes an hour to pick them out. 1 he weaver loses one hour of his productive capacity in picking out. He would gain by leaving it in one yard, perhaps 500. What would he lose by leaving it m? * " on the value of the piece which would amount to $1.1$ if tMc piece was worth $5.00. It is to his interest to pick out all defects. "I nder present conditions does a weaver take time to pick out defects? No, he lets them go by. I he- committee has had weavers. loom-fixers, etc., before them and had te->t!:n"nv as to the actual facts under present conditions. '1 hey s..:>l they would prefer straight piece rate*., or a combination quality and productive bonus. \\ e interviewed about :i people. We had loo' [ weavers---; or IO. I asLeJ each weaver a direct question. '\\ hat would you do provided there was some little defect in your cut at present. 1'u i. it our and make a perfect piece or let it :_> by .::ul tale more pr>>- duction?' Everyone said, *\\ e would let it :;o by.' I >aid, 'I nder quality bonus would y.ui do i: : * 1 i-.rv said, 'No.' t'nder straight piece work they said: 'We w. >i:kl let it go by.' " The way it appears to me is: I hat under a flat day rate no matter how high or how low it is, a man on one machine loo Man to Man is going to hold his labor down to that of the man on the next machine. You will come to the lower level rather than the higher level, and it will affect production to a point where this company cannot compete with competitors. The com- pany could not as a financial proposition adopt a plan of that kind. They would be bankrupt. Our plan is not revolu- tionary, and is working toward better quality but not looking for absolute perfection. It will mean better quality from the weavers." (Mr. Regan): "The principal reason why a weaver may be tempted to leave mistakes in his cloth under the present system of paying bonus is this: Suppose a weaver is allowed 17 hours to weave a cut and he loses one hour correcting mis- takes. That lost hour will be added to his standard time and his efficiency will come down from 100% to 94% approxi- mately. If that weaver was under straight piece rate he would lose only his yardage rate by correcting the mistake, which would be about 37c for the hour while at the present time he is losing 37c in yardage rate and a bonus, which amounts to about 3 8c, making his total loss for one hour of lost time amount to about 7$c. That is why he may be tempted to leave the mistake in and save 7c. Under the newly proposed plan of quality bonus payment, the weaver will get a bonus for good pieces. He will have either to make good goods or lose the bonus, which should be at least as big as the present bonus is. The bonus will spur him on to make good goods. I can bring facts to the next meeting to prove my statement." As a result of this investigation the committee worked out what they called a quality bonus. The weavers were to be paid a flat piece rate as before, but for a perfect piece they were to receive an extra sum of 20%; if the piece had one defect, Industrial Democracy 101 i 5 r , ; two defects reduced the bonus to io r ' ; three to 5V(' and four or mole defects forfeited the bonus and reduced the pay to the Hat rate. Now in the House they are discussing the wisdom of adopting tlnir own suggestions. (Mr. Meek): "Instead of selling our gooiU v.e ha-.e l>rm putting them over in the storeroom. In respnt to this new bonu< there arc a good many points, nilt I don't tl.;:ik for a intnute that the management has been letting the old uric go on if it did not have some good points, \\hcn you say a slight curtailment of the production, just how much do you mean? I make a motion that the bill be held over until next week." Here is a side of production that the employer seldom thinks about --that before a man can In-come truly skillful and turn cut standard quantity of perfect goods he must pass years ar a low \sagc. His alternative is to rush through poor goods and thus, by a large production, make the standard wage. The gd operator, such as the employer wants, can reach the go.il only by working against his own pocket-book. He is, in irtect, pcnah/cd for good work, and this representative puts the matter \ ery concretely in the discussion ot quality vs. quantity. i Mr. Shine): "With regard to the remarks, on the present production bonus -saying it is perfectly satisfactory. He is a gtKkl weaver. I le has no difficulty in turning out 1< >ts of goods but a big majority of them are not periect weavers. I hat is. 1:1 order to reach the loo' ,' mark they have to hurry and spoil the goods have to leave defects in, they do net come t. the fixers for aid and things of that sort. How about the poor learner? 1 he learner wily gets a low piece rate, and under the new bonus system he would collect his quality bonus. Learners would get the full amount ot the h.>nus on top . t the;r earnings. I hey arc the people that we cannot ho'ui. h takes them two IO2 Man to Man or three years or may be four years to become expert and they get discouraged and they neglect quality and become careless weavers in order to get up to the quantity bonus. Nine times out of ten they quit and go to work at something else. Now, under the proposed system, those fellows would be tickled to death and it would tend to make the kind of weav- ers that we want. We want men who feel hurt when they see a piece of defective goods. They will not only feel hurt in their feelings but also in their pocketbooks. If they see something done wrong it will hurt them in several ways and for that reason they will be more careful. "There has always been, since I ha^e been here (nearly six years), complaints about the production bonus. Now it would be very hard to figure just how much or to what extent we have suffered. One good point is this we have got produc- tion by the production bonus. Now if we want to get quality let us offer an incentive. We wanted production and we got it. We want quality and we will get it." (Mr. Barge): "Mr. Meek doesn't understand the qual- ity bonus as we have laid it out. The quality bonus will not be figured on a daily rate but on the same piece work standard as at the present time, but instead of paying a bonus for production we will pay it for quality. Every string we take out in any operation tends to make the customers more satisfied it makes the goods easier to sell tends to make our reputation better with the trade. This bonus is not only for quality but for perfect quality. If all the strings but three were taken out of a piece the company would not get any more for the piece but they would get repeat orders." (Mr. Regan): "I would like to say this to the people who may not very thoroughly understand it the quality bonus will not hurt the good weaver because no matter which sys- tem he is under he will get quality, so he is entitled to the bonus anyway. The poor learner has to strive, too, and he can't get it, so he will spoil the goods by trying to get the pro- Iiuliistri.il Dcmounty 103 tluctmn bonu and !u- \'.<>n't j,*rt the <|t!ahty ami the result will be tint he will cither 'get t!if".:;;h' <,- trv firnrthing cl-.c. We lst many xvcavers thi* wjy and we dn't wjnt t' repeat the error. 1 he j;o>d \\r.i\rr will iir\f the nuny inJucernenti that a nun h.is f.>r ilomj; l.al wt>;L .iiul t!u \ery few that arc olfered to him fur p>oj wurl.. l\lr. Krgan): " 1 he only clung I would hLc to say is this. That at the !.i-.t meeting when we J:scu:.'.ed the bonus system 1 made a statement that a weaver \ve.r. :n^ under t! < | le.nit bonus system, it he loses one or more li-uiis f>r torrei :.n.; mis- takes he is losing h.i-. yardage rate .i:ul h:s bonus, m l..^t, be loses uvue 1:1 bonus t.-.an til Varda/.e late. A staternent was made tliat t!u. was ru't s>). I promised to brinj; in f^cts aiul figure i. I ba\e them l:rr<-. "On .;'.iality tiie standard tune per unit is .6 ,:; hours. It re (litres 17 .;/ b,uii> to make :$ yards and be 100', tthcicnt. Losing one hour on a cut for OTrcctuiK mistakes, tl.s. v. eaver reduces Ins ellkieiKy from loo' ,' t>> V4 < !''> r.ite per yard on that <;uahty is > .:;S making a total of js/'i 4: t T :> \.ir^! .. i'or 1 >/ ,' prodiK'tive etliaencv we pay :o' , li-ir.ts. v.i..J; would make ,7c he is !.-,:n^ 0:1 ! - yarJ- n:;c rate t""r t!i.it h mr. In other w.-rds, M h IO-..-N t!;..t hour f >r correctm. 1 , misf.iki . under str.n.;!it piece u.uk. h:- i - .r.sj :7c. If l;e is Ki.sin;; it under the prr-.,.-nt s\ :.-:i ol bo:u:s paying, ho is losing ;~c and ; ,c which make-. 7' c. I hat is the pnn.-ipal re.is->:i why he v. .n't C'rre>.t t;, .e iristakes under t:u ptosent system <>t paying bonus. He did 'lot correct thuse mistakes under the Hat Lite system either, 104' Man to Man because for the yardage rate he would lose by doing so. Give him the bonus for good cloth, make it big enough to pay him for at least four hours of his time on a cut, and you will get better cloth, because the bonus will more than pay him for the time lost for correcting his mistakes." (Mr. Deering) : "I had a case the other day. A 100% man brought in a pretty bad piece. I wanted to know why he did not make a good piece. He said 'I cannot make a good piece and 100% at the same time. I could not do it. If I do not make 100%, I lose $3 a week/ I asked him if he could make a good piece and promised that if he did he would get 1 00%. The next piece was perfect. He corrected all the mistakes. The piece before that had about 20 strings." Mr. Shine asked Mr. Deering what the man's efficiency was on the second cut. Mr. Deering said that it was under 100%. (Mr. Pearsall): "I have a few facts. I examined a piece the other day, employee No. 423, a 100% man, who has been working here for nine years. The piece had fifteen defects and of ten kinds an imperfect piece. I spoke to him in a nice way. He gave me the same excuse as other weavers 'If I wanted to be a 100% man I could not pick that out.' There is another employee, No. 466. His piece had sixteen defects of seven kinds. Both of the weavers are of the same type. The only excuse they gave for the imperfections was that they were after the production bonus. "I had another case, employee No. 482; I looked up his efficiency. He averages 90%. I looked up his cuts for the past two weeks. The pieces are perfect. I said to him, 'You are doing fine. How much are you earning?' He said, 'I do not make enough.' I asked him if he were a 100% man and he said he was not, that he averaged 90%. He said 'If you want to make fine pieces, the way these look, it is impos- sible to make 100%, figuring on an average.' The man is earning $16.65 a week. Can we afford to lose such a man? Industrial Democracy 105 He i not satisfied with Ins present earning, judging from rrtnjrks lie lui made. Can we afford to Io-.c SIA!I a nun, break in a nr\v one, uke chances with the nr-.v t) or ,<;'x; on hjrn until h<- IN in our employ a year or so as a \ cjuote other cases. 'I hey told of one \\ea\ er \V!KI left heratise he could not make enough money. I le could not operate above an So'"' efficiency without neglect inq ijinhty. lU-mg a \ery mnNCientious man (exactly the .sort of an em- ployee that f\crv employer wants), he refused to r.ish for loo r \' by slighting his work but he had to pay for his care by taking lower wages. It was stated that this :i',.in would have made 30'",' more than he did make and, because of quality, would have been profitable to the company on a Inmus given for careful weaving as opposed to the bonus for "regard- less" production. The representatives had several other like cases. Did the quality bonus work? IK- re is what the Senate heard after a few weeks of operation: (Mr. Pearsall): "I believe it is rather early and very diffi- cult besides to show exact figures or concrete facts as to how the present quality bonus works, but judging from the reports of the different examiners ami foremen, and mv own personal experience, I must state that the goods ha\e improved a lot. I called on the man who examines the goods when it comes from the loom, and he stated that the <**.!> are coining much better and are improving each day. I a!.- called on Mr. io6 Man to Man Hoson who has charge of the Narrow Goods, and he also stated the goods had improved considerably. In an inter- view on May I7th about the 5O-inch goods, he said it was remarkable. He made the remark that they examined 300 cuts on the i6th of May and not one piece of seconds were in the lot and only a few "R" (rejected) goods. This must be so for I had the pleasure of having Mr. Brager ask me on seven occasions: 'What change did you make in the weave room? I get no more fleeced goods. Nearly every cut is Lapinex.' I don't know whether or not Mr. Brager wants to take the responsibility of last year's improvement, but nevertheless I can state from my own experience that the Quality Bonus has something to do with the improvement of the goods. In my daily inspection of the weave room, after the installation of the quality bonus, I was stopped several times by weavers and asked if the goods were all right they would show the goods to me. I asked the weavers what they were referring to and they replied: 'I want my quality bonus and I will not get it if this does not cut right.' The cutting of the goods means a whole lot. The knife and stones must be watched continually on account of the dust of the material and the dirt from some of the dyestuffs, and the assistance of the weaver is required. In the first two weeks I had quite some difficulty with some of the better weavers who were still under the impression that a few imperfections would leave them in Class i and allow them to collect a 20% bonus. They were put in Class 3 and collected only 10% bonus. They improved on the next cut and collected 15%. Some wanted to know what was required to be in Class I and I told them there must not be one single imperfection in the piece. I can prove that they tried to get it. "The transferring of weavers is also a great deal improved as now a weaver cannot lose what he has already made. This was not the case heretofore. " The -production has not suffered through the Quality Bonus. Industrial Democracy 107 The average production for April amounted to: April i st wrcl. 10:' i " ;.-! " 14, " 4th " 101 " I hat i:. a pretty go>d avera:;r fr t!ic first month of t!ic quality Knus." "Mr. I iallagher sai-1 lie had hern t.i!Li:i~ to an av.rt.mt <>f Mr. Mi nrr aiui asLrJ his opinion about the com!-, lotninj; through. I he assistant saiJ that it was- wonderful t!.c wjy the goxls were coining at the present time." How did it come about that the workers them- selves went so far toward the solution of this pi r- plexing problem of bettering the quality of pro- duction? Simply because Industrial Democracy taught them the principles of an all-around square deal and put the enforcing of that square deal up to them. The problem ceased to belong to the cor- poration and became the property of the people themselves. Eliminating "seconds" was only part of the work which they did and are still doing. The} Went after "seconds" because they were wasteful; they went alter other wastes in a like thorough fashion. Here are some extracts from the report of the Committee on the Conservation of Supplies: It has been brought to the attention of the Conservation of Supplies Committee that a large amount of good paper is destroyed or spoilt in our Weaving Department and the io8 Man to Man following recommendations are put before the Senate for dis- cussion and for action to be taken. (1) (a) That the Warping Department when wrapping covering paper around the warps, mark the paper on each warp with an arrow, the arrow to point and show the direction of the material on that warp. This will enable the parties who are putting the warp into the loom to know, without tearing the paper to obtain this information, how to place the warp and the direction the material runs. (b)That an arrow be painted upon the flanges, the direction of this arrow to be always noted and taken care of by the foreman of the Warping Department when starting to make a new warp. There seems to be quite a difference of opinion as to which is the best and most convenient method. We consider the subject should be discussed in the Senate, then a bill put through for the method decided upon. Under present con- ditions there is a lot of paper spoilt through those putting in warps tearing the paper so that they can see the material and the direction in which it runs. Either of the above methods should eliminate this practice. (2) That there is a lot of paper wasted through it being allowed to lie around on the various looms where it is placed after being taken off the warps. It is considered that either the men taking it off the warps should deliver it back im- mediately to the Warping Department or that the foreman twister have a boy to make trips once or twice a day through the weave sheds for the particular purpose of carefully picking up all paper from off and around the looms and turning same into the Warping Department. We are of the opinion that the foregoing should be read out to both houses and all members should strongly cooperate in their endeavors to stop the waste of this paper, and also to bring to the personal attention of any member of this com- mittee all matters where they consider that our supplies are being misused or wasted. Industrial Democracy Take stationers ami blank forms which cost 900 to 1,000 a month. I lie committee suggested that the accounting department furnish each foreman with a statement of the amount of stationery us c>vii a period of time so that they could check up on each item. They further recommended that no forms should he independently issued, Imt that all should come to a central control; that if a new form were desired it should not he prmtrd until its absolute necessity was established and the other forms of the company were investigated to make certain that none of those in stock could be used. They found that the manila paper bought for the packing and shipping department was used in various departments of the mill where cheaper grades would answer the purpose quite as well. They posted the sign: "SAVING WASTE INCREASES PAY." And there you see the economy dividend at work it hitched up saving waste with pay. They got that idea very quickly; they made money tor themselves and for the company. Look at this joint resolution: BE IT ENACTED AND Ki SOLVED Tn\r: I. A blackboard be placed in each department, or upon no Man to Man each floor where a department exceeds one floor, throughout the mill. 2. A committee be formed consisting of members of the House of Representatives and Senate in each respective de- partment, or on each respective floor, for the purpose of originating and writing on the blackboard three days prior to the date of dividend payment a message on dividends to the employees of the said department or floor. 3. The Dividend Committee shall receive and pass upon all messages to be placed on the blackboards in the different departments so that all messages will keep within the busi- ness policy of this concern. 4. The department of floor committees will also be notified of the percentage of dividend to be paid, and each week this will be entered at the same time that the message is. 5. A blackboard as per the attached design shall be adopted for the purpose of entering the message on dividends to the people. 6. The messages to be written on the blackboards in English This is by no means the whole record of Indus- trial Democracy in the Shelton Looms it is a very small part of the record, but it gives the oppor- tunity to hear the testimony of the people them- selves on some points which are troubling most manufacturers whether or not they are in textiles. Industrial Democracy not only found that lost half million but it is finding countless other thou- sands which will, within a few years, mount into the millions. CHAPTER VI Mt'ST A FOREMAN III: A IMT.IUST? AIX)/.KN miles out from Cleveland, Ohio, is a sleeps , dust-covered little town which serins to hnd its excuse for existence in being a butt for the big city. Whenever a traveling comedian wants to work in a local joke of a peculiarly rustic nature, he habitates it there. One has only to start, "I was over in Blank yesterday . . ." and the audience begins to laugh. Formerly a single-track trolley line wended its way through its straggling main ami only street and furnished a link between the inhabitants and the effeter civilization in the city. Hut the town has a college and the college had a professor of economics and he delved into the proper relations of transportation companies and communities. His researches convinced him that the trolley company was not serving the public as well as a perfectly ordered franchise holder should. 'I hen he convinced the town fathers of the enormity of permitting a soulless corporation to act so brazenly. H2 Man to Man Thereupon he drew up and they adopted an elabo- rate schedule of the cars the company should run, when they should leave, and when they should arrive, providing adequate penalties for non- performance, and generally introducing the most modern, academic methods of transportation reg- ulation. The only flaw in the plan was the trolley company. Its officers and directors read the new edicts with the utmost care, said that they were perfectly splendid, and if carried out in the spirit as well as in the letter, the town denizens might fare forth into the world with regularity and dispatch. Modestly they confessed to an incapacity to manoeuvre in such an ideal atmos- phere, but asserted they would not, in the slightest degree, interfere in the communication scheme. They would efface themselves. Thereupon they packed up their tracks and their cars and headed for some less progressive community, cheerfully offering to give the franchise, which the professoi of economics had evaluated so highly, to any one who hankered after a franchise. Thereafter the townese made connection with the United States over a storage battery car on a spur line. That is, they made connections if the weather were all right, the conductor and motor- Industrial Democracy 113 man both feeling well, and the car in working order; it is only fair to say that oner in a while all of these happy conditions did concatenate. More than half a century before, long before trolley cars had been dreamed of, came to the town a big, hard-fisted blacksmith. He was a fore- handed smith and his forge had not breri working many months before he discovered that his cus- tomers could use a certain amount of castings to replace broken parts for which they would other- wise have to send afar. He sit up a little foundry which made such good gray iron castings of the lighter weights that others than the neighbors sought to buy them. And soon he forgot about his blacksmith siiop and gave himself up to the foundry. He was an iron master in every sense of the word; he was the master and he ruled. Those who work about iron are not a gentle lot; they run to red tlannel under- shirts ami belligerent dispositions; they give ami they take and they have no respect for a boss who cannot, it the occasion rises, roundly thrash any one of them. The old master could do it and his son, following after him, ably maintained the martial supremacy of the family. It is tins son with wh<>m we are concerned, a;ul H4 Man to Man at the time with which we are concerned he was president of the company, stood two inches over six feet, owned 240 odd pounds of brawn, a million dol- lars or so, a sunny, even disposition, and, although nearly sixty years old, had an equally hearty wallop and handshake. He, too, had a son, also in the busi- ness, and also entirely able to take care of himself. There were no pacifists in that management; they did not know what a "nonresistant" was. All the foremen were "huskies" and thus they ruled some 300 Poles, Lithuanians, Hungarians, Italians, and Negroes in a comparative peace and quiet, because any one who wanted "to start anything" could find far safer places than this particular foundry. Everybody was reasonably happy, the castings came through, and although laboring men did not like to work in such a dead, far-away town, the state was so glutted with immigrants that it was always possible to find plenty of men. The foundry could shut down on any day, pay off the labor, and after a month or so of idleness, be absolutely certain to recruit a full force simply by hanging out a sign. The men received the market price for their services and were fairly treated. It was a good, average, thriving, foun- dry business conducted on good, average, thriving Industrial Democracy 115 foundry business lines. They did not try any fool experiments; they knew what they were doing; they were able to get their share of work and they made money. The president and his son both had statewide reputations for absolute fairness and integrity. They were respected by their employees and by the community. They were the big people of the town. They had that patron-saint position of the manufacturer from whose activities flows the prosperity of the neigh- borhood. Then came what I think we shall some day call the Industrial Revolution of 1916. The war orders of the Allies brought a feverish activity into the state. People began to talk about labor short- age; labor took up the cry, and, turning back the law of supply and demand upon their employers, the labor market became a first-class imitation of the Chicago wheat pit with a speculator frying to effect a corner. The laboring man revelled in a new independence. Having a do/en jobs to select from any day in the week, he lost all tear of discharge. He grew careless, worked only when he felt like it, and enjoyed his inning to the utmost. The management of the foundry could not u6 Man to Man understand the new order of things. Like most employers they tried to face the new facts but they could not realize that world conditions had changed, that old methods would not do in a day of rising living costs, restricted labor supply, and intense demands for more and more production. The president tried out various bonus systems of production; he looked into efficiency methods, and, although every method he tried was in itself good, all of them neglected the factor which had undergone the greatest change the human factor. All the methods presumed that money incentives would bring men up to capacity. In that they reckoned wrongly. The workers were interested in money but they were making more money than they had ever seen before. They found employers bidding for them on every side and they trans- ferred any interest which they might have had in the work to seeing that the employers kept right on bidding. At the end of a day they thought to themselves not, "How much did I do today," but "How much shall I ask for tomorrow?" The care was not to earn but to get wages. The president, his son and the foremen railed. But what was the use? The men, when too much bossed, simply took up their coats and went Industrial Democracy 117 on to the next job. Ross rule the rule of the hard fist and the strong arm ended. All the while, the company was being deluged with orders. I hi v could not keep up, though running on full toice, with ev-n subnormal pre- war production, while on thru hooks were three times as great a quantity of orders as had ever he-en there. Among them were rush orders for the United States Government. The president resolved that, since labor seenu-d to want more and more money, he would go tin- limit on wages. 1 he company contracts were lib- eral enough to give a profit even at high wagis provided only they were filled within a reasonable time. lie raised all wages a flat IC/" t . He de- termined to buy production. But at the end of that month the summary of operations disclosed the startling fact that production had fallen of!" lo r l and that the labor turnover for the month hail nor decreased. Perhaps the increase in wages had not been large enough. 'I he president added another 10' [. ''Now," he declared, ''I have given them all the wages they can think of asking for. They are getting double what they got two years ago and I ought to get a little action out of them." Ii8 Man to Man He posted the new voluntary increase; the men took it calmly. They expected monthly raises and figured to themselves that the company was not entitled to any particular credit but was only buying at the market price for labor just as it bought pig iron at the market. The production in the second month made a new low record for the full force working another straight 10% drop. The increases in wages had been to date a flat failure but the president did not realize that the workers wanted anything more than money. And he was right in a way it was wages they thought they wanted. Really, they did not know what they were after. A few long heads may have seen that there had to be a limit to wages; that if wages kept going up so would the prices of the finished article until they reached a point where no one could buy and then there would be neither work nor wages. The president tried again; he put on another 10%, making a total increase of 30% within three months a procedure which caused him and his fellow executives to wonder where in the world business had started for and to hope that the end might come quickly. This third 10% increase Industrial Democracy u<) pave no better results than tin- previous ones. Production made another IK w low record and if the labor turnover hail been any faster they would have had to employ a traffic policeman to prevent those going out from getting into tin way of those coming in. 1 hen and there the executives went into solemn, almost sepulchral, session. They mournfully de- cided that they had reached the end of their rope, that they did not know anything about business cavorting as it was then. Bur they could not shut up shop; they could not completely fall down on the Government contracts; they were far be- hind in deliveries but they had to go on. Mow 1 could they continue with a shop that was out of control, with costs going higher every day, and with production both in quantity and in quality sliding so rapidly down the scale that their only hope was, when it did hit zero, it would have suf- ficient force to rebound. Ilu-y were willing to try anything. They had tried everything and everything had failed. It was then that they heard of Industrial De- mocracy and into the swilling chaos I took. In- dustrial Democracy. I had the men meet with the officers and di- I2O Man to Man rectors and we talked over things. I told them that riding on a merry-go-round was fun for a while, but it wasn't the kind of thing that any one found pleasant day in and day out. That they them- selves were probably becoming tired of following the call of high wages from place to place; that if they struck a balance they might find that the expense of shifting and the discomforts of new quarters every few weeks were costing them more than the additional money they were continually asking and obtaining. They agreed with me that running from job to job was a nuisance, that they felt that they were not getting anywhere. But what was a man going to do? It cost so much to live that even at the highest w r ages, precious little stuck for a rainy day. I did not blame them for selling their services to the highest bidder -that \vas only natural and right. When there were more men than jobs, precious few employers had ever paid or could ever pay other than the lowest wage which would fill the shop. They were competing in the outside market in the price of goods and they thought they had to compete in the inside of the shop with the price of labor. "But," I went on, "we can all find a better way Iiulustri.il Democracy i~i than this. \\ r can all make motr money the company as well as yourself h\ g< -mug n>ic < ui of the ilay, by ceasing to wik as individuals and all working together. ^ ou have pi obably heard a great deal ahout working togtthci tot rhc im- pany's benefit but have \ ! self-government. Still more t!u y liked the idea of getting a di\ id< IH! on their wages calculated on tlu u o\sn sa\ m; r s ami efficiencies. 1 hey liked tlu- thought i;;:m \\ith the ardor i>f children starting a mw g;u;ie. A few could not shake oil the old "hold-up" spirit. '1 hey saw in the IH \v older of thiv.ps a chance to "fake." Six nun working at a 4] cent piece rate waited upon the superintendent; they insisted on a raise to six cents; otherwise they would quit. Answered the superintendent: 122 Man to Man "This is out of my hands now. If your rate* are not right tell your representatives about them and 1 the House of Representatives will appoint a committee to see that you get what is coming to you." The kickers did not like that idea. Complained their leader: "What does the House of Representatives know about this? We know what our rates are, what our work is, and how much we ought to get for it." The superintendent absolutely refused to exceed his authority. The dissatisfied men would not appeal so the superintendent himself explained the situation to the Speaker of the House who at once convened a session and appointed an investigating committee. This committee examined the work and the men. They brought in a finding that the six cent rate had not been asked for in order to bring up wages but that the kickers had calcu- lated that at six cents they could do less work than before and earn the same total amount of money. Thus the increase would retard and not stimulate production. The men were caught at their own game. They were caught trying to hoodwink their fellows. Industrial Democracy 123 Strangely enough the- protestors did not quit when the adverse verdict was handed down. In- stead they went really to work, exerted themselves, ami earned high wages. 1 he quantity and quality of the production of the whole foundry began to incieasr with the very first month's operations. The dividend for the first thirty days was (/ ,' and at the end of three months, the workers had increased it to io r ,'. They did this by working together. '1 hi v found that dividends came from following the principles of the Business Policy they had adopted that the policy was not a mete collection of words, hut a living thing, to which tiny might turn tor advice at any hour ot the day. 1 he men her. an to know and interest themselves in one another. "Jimmy is sick," announced a ripusuitativc ar a House meeting. "He is a good fellow ami he isn't earning anything. He has a big family and he hasn't had a chance to lay \crv much hy. Let's take up a collection and send him some money." Another member thought that ir would not be right to rake up a collection Kcai^c then Jimmy might ieel that he was getting ch;:i:t\ and anyhow any workman who tell sick should have an equal 124 Man to Man chance and it might be that when an unpopular man was in a bad way nobody would "chip in" for him. Out of this discussion grew a mutual benefit association. The company had looked after its men when they were ill but they could not know all of them and the workers themselves that is the setter class did not like the idea of receiving charity. They wanted to stand on their own feet. The House committee took actuarial advice and worked out a plan to provide in advance for any trouble that might come to any man including both health and life insurance in the scheme. They devised a schedule of deductions from the dividends and absolutely forbade the taking up of a public subscription for a worker. Any one on the pay roll might elect the sort of insurance that he fancied. For i% off his dividend check he might have insurance equal to his annual earnings. Thus they accomplished insurance without cutting in on the pay envelopes which always comes hard to a workman. And they were the happier for doing the insuring themselves. The making of castings is a tricky b usiness. The mold must not only be well made, but the gate through which the molten iron enters has to be Iiulustri.il Democracy i " S just the right si/e and shape or the iron v.ill flow in too slowly or too last and cause an imp! itect casting; the man pouting must regulate the speicJ at which the iron leaves tin adle. hut above all, the lion has to In- "hot" and "miming right. " Changes in atmosphere aflect the fluidity of the iron; it tuns om- way in dry weather and another in wet. Ins'ioit.it lias an exaspcratinply fickle natutr which IK\ cr \ et has hem tjiiite put undir control. The moldcrs weir paid at piece rates for peiltct castings but imperfect ones might result Irom ;::u ot siver.il causes not under tlu;i control. 'I he "cupola man" who hlled the biL: "bull ladle" might help or hinder the run, or he might do 1 is work properly and the ''pouiei" be caielos. The cupola tender and the "pouu is were on day wages and they had no incentive to better work; their money came through regulaily, whether or not they did then best. ^ on can realize the possibilities tor disputes under this system. I think that no chances tor rows slipped by. The molders were usually cursing the pourers and even body cursed the "cjpola man." NMun blows threatened, a foreman jumped in. A halt 126 Man to Man row was always on and a fair-sized war was a daily happening. This was before they learned the .cash as well as the happiness value of united work. The House quickly took up the situation. They began with the "cupola man." He was a dour individual who intensely disliked improve- ments. He had opposed every improvement in the past he was one of the few men who had been with the company a long time and he hated the new idea of community interest. He made himself the first big barrier to an improvement in the work; he refused to change his ways. His particular fancy was to fill one ladle and then stop the flow of metal at the cupola while the next ladle was being put in place. That choppy meth- od restricted the whole flow of production. The new idea was to lead the metal out through a two-pronged trough so that while one "bull ladle" was being filled, another might be wheeled into place ready at once for its quota of live metal. Thus a constant delivery might be obtained. Everybody wanted the new way except the " cupola man"; he said he would quit before he changed and he quit. A man was selected from the working force and the foundry took a step Industrial Democracy 127 forward. Hut what happened to the conscientious objector? I It- wi-nt out and got another job and inside of thirty days came back again to do his old job in the new way. He said that he did not like to woik anywhere else! Hut now lie is working ti".:k the company. The "pourers" had been careless. They were not interested in results and were usually at swords' points with their molders. 1 he House got around this by resolving to have tin- molders select and control their own "pourers" so that it any "pourer" were not satisfactory, the molders through the House would have correction in their own hands. I he molders could no longer cntici/c the company for hit ing incapable or careless men they had to look to themselves. And because not only their pay but also the dividend depended upon turning out first-grade castings they saw to it that the "pourers" used care. Thus ended the pouring troubles. Molding is something of a fine art. There are only a few skilled molders and, try as they might, some ot the men could not produce even a reasonably high average of good castings. T hey made their molds and gates with all care r.nd to the best o{ their knowledge, but often good 128 Man to Man castings would not result and why they knew not. This, too, came before the House. A committee investigated and reported that the causes for most faulty castings could be traced by an expert in molding practice and it would materially help quality production if the com- pany had an inspector who would not only know a bad casting when he saw il, but also why it was bad and who would be able to go back to the man who had made it and tell him the exact trouble. They suggested one of their number Harry. The company appointed Harry. And he set in to raise the casting standing of the shop. Being an expert molder and a student of iron, he could instantly put his finger on the cause of defective work. When a bid casting came to him and he had diagnosed the trouble, he went to the molder who had made it and explained the exact nature of the defect. It might be that the gate was too large or too small; but whatever the cause, Harry found it and the men, recognizing that he knew what he was talking about, were glad to have his advice. When they were puzzled on a mold they began to get Harry's approval before the pouring began. They realized that it helped dividends to avoid the waste of poor castings and they dropped Industrial Democracy 129 the too common attiuulc of letting pride forbid thnn to ask quefft!* us. These improvements w -re all in tin- direction of quality production. 1 In y saved tin- company mom v hy cutting out tin- e\p nsr ot tavm^s a : dividends. The improvement in qualit) u.is remaikahlc, hut wliat is even ir.(/ie remarkahle i > that the ream spuit produced n-r only Inttti cast. .11'^ hut more ol them. I nder the <>K1 silu-me ot individual work, the company hud faced steadiK mcieasini; war.e-i and .steadily ckcreaMng pio- duction. In the httli month of the experiment in silf- government, t!u- co?npan\' had a net increase in production and shipping ot ;i' , in excess of the best month in their history ! I hat is N'vhar team work did f<>t jV' di:ction. The lal>or turno\-er, except id MA!I causes as death or sickness, practically cca^ d t> he. 'i he waives with the dividend :_'avc the i tr.p!"\ 1 1 s higher returns than were paid in the dinner ir suv.ilar work. But the companv could atlord the waives and dividends because the increased elHciencv and 130 Man to Man the elimination of wastes scaled down their unit costs of production. They saved money on high wages which is as it should be. Instead of scour- ing the country for men, they had a waiting list. The business of the company increased to such an extent that, in spite of the big production of the force, it became necessary to take on more men. The Cabinet decided on this addition only after consultation with the House of Representa- tives and the Senate and a general agreement of opinion that the best business interests would be served by increasing the force. But where could these men sleep and eat? The little town was already crowded. The House had long since sug- gested that the company build houses and a num- ber were being built, but they did not meet the immediate need. The House asked for a mass meeting to consider the subject. The Speaker of the House told the men of the conditions. That, as they all knew, the company should add to the force; there were no houses for new employees and none could be built and finished within four or five months. Had the workers any recommendations ? Suggested a worker, "Let every man here who has a house take in a temporary boarder. I don't think any of us want boarders just now when we Industrial Democracy 131 arc making money but it is up to us to help out. hi very man in this room who will take in a boarder raise his haiul." Up went the hands. They absorbed the thirty men then hired, and since then thi-v have found quarters tor many more men. Thus they ban- ished the housing problem from the little town that had no housing facilities. I 1 torn a wrangling, snarling mass, rough of speech ami ready ot rtst, this foundry group be- came a band of cooperative 1 manufacturers. The men now like the plan because it gives them the joy of creative effort. No longer does the money incentive wholly stimulate them. They have learned the fundamental truth that a task \\ell done brings quite incidentally, but with absolute surety, its own proper and adequate reward. I hat v. hosoeViT makes his job the complete expres- sion ot himself need no longer worry about pa\ . I have spoken of the nun. How did the com- pany like the way things worked out? I his is what the president had t'> say the other dav. The results have been: F irst Increased pnuluctiiin. Scvorul IniTiMvil i-.it:i!Mi;s to the company a:iJ the men. ThirJ Pccrc.iM.-J co.-,t. 132 Man to Man Fourth Better quality. Fifth A contented and energetic organization. Sixth Our business is more strictly within our control than ever before. The manufacturer struggling alone with his business bur- dens, carrying them on his own shoulders only, and who lias not seen the value of the interest on the part of the humans in the organization, will not believe such a change is possible. He, however, has something pleasant to learn. CHAPTER VII INPTS 1KI M. Pi Mt the results ot shop as distinguished iiom Inhotaiory ti-sts. My thought has In < n to prtsmr ivr nuTcrly a thfory of industrial relation, hu* a t!u-<>[\- which has hecii estahhshed and proved in pnu'tir.- and uiuler vaiietl rondirions. A theory which piovc-s itsc'lt uith American woiknu-n of ratlu; ai>o\ r the average ^i.ul, a-. :M:!I th.e Packard C'oinnativ \sith t>n<.Ji ti'ii-mn i.tl^.r as in tin- i: n foundry; with practicall) alu-n v. . tkvrs as in t!-.. case ot tiu' Deinuth I >mpanv; with wea\'i-rs '.\!i ' are notorious]) floating, as \M*!I Ijlunu-n; hal ^\ C'o. can, 1 think, s.:!<.!\ In- t;:kv-:i as unr.cis.il m application. I p.n;;!u have re-red ar 1> a-r i:itein trori- sroiu-s ot i-ijual inte:<-.r \\itii tr.i^ \\!MC!I ha\e heit t!;iou.;h a:; 134 Man to Man experience of ten years in many and varied in- dustries. It is a form of management which de- veloped with me; it was not born full grown. It grew out of my own long experience as a worker and has its genesis in the late P. D. Armour. Years ago our gang was splashing about in the muck of the old stockyards when "P.D." came along on his old sorrel. He noticed that Pat was wearing a thin coat and had leaky boots: he stopped. "What are you doing around here dressed like that?" he asked. "It's all I got," answered Pat. "Go buy yourself a heavy suit of clothes and a pair of boots and charge them to me," ordered Armour. "We can't afford to have a good man like you get sick." Armour was always doing that sort of thing. Of course he was an autocrat, but his was a benevolent despotism. He paid fair wages and demanded long hours of service because he knew no other way to work -that was the way he had been brought up it was the way he had worked. I hold no brief for all his business practices but I do know that he had a profound personal interest in all those who worked for him Industrial Democracy 135 and that they returned that interest by a remark- able loyalty. That incident and others like it made an impression on me. It started me to thinking why could not all employers and employ- ees have mutual interests; why could they not treat with each other on the man-to-man basis? I kept that idea with me through endless jobs. I saw employees come and go, live ami the, with- out a thought on the part of the employers as to their welfare. I saw the employees show an equal lack of interest in the employers and demonstrate this disinterestedness by pointedly doing just as little as they possibly could for their wages. I could find no relation between wages and work. The employer paid the lowest wage at which he could get men and the worker gave the smallest return which he could possibly give and still get the highest wages. I am speaking generally. I noticed striking exceptions and I also noted that many, 1 think a majority, of the employers had no measure of wage except that paid by a com- petitor and they felt that if they raised wages and the competitor did not they could not sell against him. 'I he workmen also did not coniuct wage with work. They wanted two dollars in pay for a dollar's worth of work; they did not work any 136 Man to Man harder or any more intelligently for two dollars than they did for one dollar. In neither case did they put more than their hands into the tasks. Inside each institution I found runious com- petition between labor and capital the one to get more the other to give less. This competition seemed to me both wrong and foolish and I delib- erately went from job to job, although I had no income other than my wages, merely to find if there was not some better way of adjusting the relation between the proprietor and the worker. Out of that first-hand investigation, pursued with- out theories and without a knowledge of philos- ophy, came a gradual comprehension that there could be a better way. Seeking the why and the how led me into philosophy into the causes behind what we call results and step by step unfolded that which I now call Industrial De- mocracy. My first large opportunity to try out my ideas came as one of the managers of an envelope plant. I had then no well-defined plan of formal organi- zation. I tried merely to come to good terms with the people who were working in the departments to make them feel that I was one with them and that their interests were mv interests. I was Industri.il Democracy 137 astounded to see how quickly they responded. \Ve held mass meetings from time to tune in order to try to pet the same point of view and at those mass meetings we talked over the management of the factory, better ways of doing work, and although we had no power to enforce any res- olutions we adopted the executive officers proved themselves willing to atlopr most of our sugges- tions and seemed to welcome our cooperation they found it profitable. I hat is the record of my first trial at anything approaching demo- cratic shop government. Of course it was far from actual democracy; ir was practically only a democracy of suggestion. Bur the big thing about it is that it worked. It gave a foundation upon which to build. It proved to me that my fundamental ideas were right. The men liked the meetings; they liked the chance to air troubles, to have it out over any- thing which did not satisfy them; and gradually it dawned on me that this desire to talk and to have a say in things was the bubbling to the surface of the innate spirit of democracy of the desire which is in almost every man to have a voice in his own destiny and a means for self-expression. And that the great change which had come about 138 Man to Man in their work was by reason of the brain power freed through responding to these natural urges. Analyzing my personal work I found that what I had really done was to capitalize fair play to sell the management to the men, to convince them that their meetings were of importance and not merely opportunities to blow off steam. I found it difficult to measure the relative importances of the two phases. The opportunity for democratic expression was undoubtedly that which attracted and held interest, but just as undoubtedly that opportunity would not have been seized had not the men been convinced of its fairness, sincerity, and mutual good. That is entirely reasonable; one finds the same thing in politics. We have been managing busi- ness autocratically; one man or a group of men has commonly had absolute Kaiser-power power more absolute within its sphere than that of any ruler on earth and if employers do not, most certainly employees do, recognize the fact. They are therefore suspicious when an employer de- velops overnight a zeal for democratic control. I do not care what plan you attempt to put in force, and I do not care how sincere may be your desires, the workers will question whatever you give to Industrial Democracy 139 them. They will quickly pick, any patent Haws or limitations and if they cannot tuul such they \vill not thereupon conclude that you intend to he fair. On the contrary, they will ask "Where is the joker?" I hey expect a joker. \\lu-n the 1 s.u granted the Duma to Russians only a few ol the people accepted ir as a step toward iK i.ioc- racy, the others wanted to he shown the "joker.* 1 And, Mire enough, in due turn-, they found not only one, init halt" a do/en jokers. Bearing in mind this wholly natural mental state I have gone forward with Industrial Democ- racy, holding two propositions as fundamental: (/) A ]<'Tin of di-tnncracy should If adopted :; /; :Y/i permits thf most direct possible act: on l>y the :: ' jric-rs tktmsfkfs and practically without rigid I in: '.'.a'.: ?: <{ its txtfi:!. In such casf probaHv r.o '/<'- jurisdiction 'til! c-ccr arise. If yo.v c' > jl.\- /:"::'.'. ij you erect a jfnce around the dm:' natural human instinct is in j p. -;:.;' 77; . .' < ' :!:r ::^:r If aningotfr that fencf trying t) i;.-; int-j :': n ' \ .'/;'.-;./. (2) S c \l the plan t > '.he- ttr.p'o^ ^^''-'-'' ''?n: cf \'ratc o* mind. In its broadest sense it is a state of 140 Man to Man mind. As far as this present book is concerned I am considering it only in a limited application as a method of management of a factory or some other specific commercial entity and not broadly as a mode of national government. I am taking as settled without argument that American prin- ciples of democracy are right and then making application of these principles to the governing of a factory. My thought is that if we manage our smaller, more intimate affairs on right principles then, as a matter of course, we shall manage our great, national affairs on right principles. This, then, is what I call Industrial Democracy: The organization of any factory or other business institution into a little democratic state, with a rep- resentative government which shall have both its legislative and executive phases. The democracy which I favor and which I have proved in practice takes its titular organization from our own Federal Government and also fol- lows its modes of procedure. It necessarily dif- fers in detail. The formal organization depends upon the size of the company. In a large insti- tution one would require a Cabinet, a Senate, and a House of Representatives supplemented by mass Industri.il Democracy 141 meetings of the entire working force as occasion requires. In u very small place (employing jOO or less) it may nor he necessary ro elect represen- tatives at all and the ma-.s meeting may, in town meeting st\ le, he able tot r.msacr all of : he business subject to the confirmation <>f a Cabinet. Take the three divisions, their derivations and their powers. Tin: CAKIM:T 'I he Cahmet con ists ot the executive officers of the company with the president of the company acting as its chairman. I ins body is not elective by the workers and its personnel exists by virtue of the vote of the corporation through its st-K'k- holders or directors according as the by-laws <>! the corporation may prescribe. I do not think it would make tor democracy to have the Cabinet elective and I have nowhere heard :ha: is 1:1 tins country workers ask that it should be. I he Cabinet is pnmaHv an e\i-cu:i\v body. It has the power to veto hut I have never known that power to be exercised. Ir a!>o ha, the power to initiate legislation ui the same manner as the President of the United States -that is, hv making a suggestion in a message to the Senate or House of Representatives. Neither the Senate nor the 142 Man to Man House is obliged to follow these suggestions. But, as in the case of our own Government, each practically always does adopt the suggestions, al- though frequently with additions. Thus the exe- cutive officers, instead of issuing orders to em- ployees, become a part of the democratic control and are fully in touch with the people and their needs as expressed through the Senate and House* The Cabinet meetings have before them not only the bills which have been passed by the Senate and the House, but also the minutes of all the meet- ings and the discussions. The extracts from the minutes which have been given in the preceding chapters show how free and informal is the debate thus the executives know what the people are thinking about by reading what they say in their discussions. All communications in the Senate and House are privileged and no employee may be punished for anything that he may say in meeting. In fact, he should not even be cautioned or criticized, for to limit the right of free speech in the Senate, in the House,Sor in a mass meeting would be to make an absurdity out of democracy. And the inevitable self-criticism by the bodies themselves is more efficacious. The Cabinet meets once a week, discusses the specific bills, Industrial Democracy 14; which come up for approval, any communications or joint resolutions, and also deals with tin- larger problems of management which would naturally come before a meeting of executives. If they decide a change to be desirable, they do not, as would ordinarily be the case, simply frame an order and promulgate it for better or for worse; instead they put the order into the form of a sug- gestion, or recommendation, give the reasons be- hind their action, and send it to the Senate or House. 1 he exact measure will be adopted or re- jected as these bodies' see fit, but in any event it is sure of a full ami complete discussion from even, possible angle and the object will be at- tained. It the measure be rejected, the execu- tives may rest assured that they have been piv- vented from issuing an erroneous order and saved from the results of a mistaken snap judgment. Pu- ventmg unwise orders by the management would be of itself a sufficient reason for the existence <>t a form ot democratic government. THK Sl.NXTK 1 he Senate also is not an elective body. It is made up ot the under-cxecutives, department heads, and sub-foremen, according to the si/e ot 144 Man to Man the establishment, the idea being that its members shall comprehend all of those under the grade of chief executive officers who are in a position of authority over the workers themselves. It elects a president, a secretary, and such other officers as may be necessary. It has standing committees and special committees just as has the Senate of the United States, and it is an extremely valuable body in that it represents the supervision point of view. It approaches measures from the stand- point of the man who must put them into effect, Its powers and practices are identical with those of the House of Representatives which are given in the next section. THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES The House of Representatives is the popular body of government, being elected by secret ballot by the whole body of workers. The exact mode of election depends upon the size and the character of the institution. I find that it is commonly best to have the elections by departments with a representative for each twenty to forty people employed within the department. The depart- mental basis is advisable because then every phase of the business is assured of a proportion- Industrial Democracy 145 ate voice, which might i<>t he the case were all the representatives elected at large. The repre- sentatives are also supposed to act as counselors within their departments, to receive all complaints and suggestions from their constituents, and also to acquaint them with what the legislative bodies are doing. The Speaker of the House is elected and he appoints the committees. His right-hand man is tl-.e Chairman of the Ways and Means Com- mittee, which is the committee of paramount importance. Both the Senate and the House are governed in their proceedings by Robert's Rules of Order and both, in addition, adopt constitutions ami by-laws. Meetings of the Senate and House are weekly and always on company tune, piece workers being paid an approximation of what they would have made had they been working. The system will fail miserably if the meetings are held after hours or otherwise in the employee's time. Business is transacted to a considerable degree through committees. Kach measure is, as a rule, referred to a committee to investigate and report so that when the time conns for open discussion all available facts will be in hand. 1 his tends to 146 Man to Man shut off irrelevant discussion and keeps the meet- ings from wandering from their subject matter. THE POWERS OF THE HOUSE AND SENATE Every measure before becoming a law must pass both the Senate and the House and be ap- proved by the Cabinet. When the Senate and the House cannot agree on the terms of a bill, a conference committee is appointed to iron out the differences and present a compromise measure. Every dispute, whether between workmen, a workman and a foreman or executive, between foremen, or between a foreman and an executive may come before either the Senate or the House. Usually a committee is appointed. This com- mittee will take testimony, find according to the facts, and report back their findings. The House may accept or reject their findings. If it accepts them it passes a measure to correct the trouble which may involve only a change in method, or may bring in a recommendation for the dis- missal or shifting of one of the parties. The bill then goes to the Senate and, if it concurs, passes to the Cabinet for final approval. If the facts surrounding the passage of the measure are not clear to the Cabinet they will call for more infor- industrial Democracy 147 mation and may suggest changes; the wise Cabinet will not use a c!ul>. This wide latitude of expression makes the House and the Senate important cooperative factors of management. If any men think that their wages 01 rates are unjust they have hut to bring the matter before the House of Representatives and it will receive a thorough and impartial inves- tigation by a committee of their peers. Thus the legislative bodies practically adjust wages and I have yet to know a case in any of the establish- ments where Industrial Democracy is in force, that an increase in wages passed by both the Senate and the House has not been willingly con- firmed by the Cabinet. Particularly do thev ferret out injustices in piece rates. Very few piece rates are scientifically set. In the same department the same amount of effort and skill may net ,^i or >2 according to the vagaries of tin- rate. Men hesitate to complain to foremen be- cause more often than not the foremen have hxed the rates. I he men know jusr rates and through their House of Representatives they see to it that rates are made just. Permitting the men to have a say in adjusting their wages removes the perplexing wage question as a fer- 148 Man to Man tile field of dispute. Of course they will not agree to low wages, but no manufacturer desires low wages. If he is big enough to stay in business, he must know that low wages spell high cost pro- duction and output of poor quality. Only the fool thinks that low wages save money. Hours of labor are on a similar footing and similarly are best left to joint determination. Employers fear giving power to employees through a democratic organization, but that is because they have never tried them with power. It is true that unions will sometimes increase wages and shorten hours to such a degree that a plant owner thinks he cannot accept the terms without ruin. But there is a big difference between a union meeting and a shop meeting. The union is probably antagonistic to the employer for some reason good or otherwise. But the shop meet- ing, if the employer has convinced it of his desire to be fair, will not be unfair. The men who will vote regardless of whether or not they are killing someone's else goose will not vote to kill their own goose. Through the machinery of democracy it is perfectly possible for the employees and the em- ployer to reach a common ground and to begin to Industrial Democracy know each other. It is haul to have serious mis- understandings if there is a wide opportunity to exchange views ami appreciate viewpoints and that is precisely what the machinery of Industrial Democracy affords. "i in: IU:SINI-:SS policy Hut the machinery of democracy will not, of itself, bring about the understanding. It is oniv a machine, and, like every other machine, ir needs power to turn the wheels. That power comes from the adoption of a bujiess policy, a constitu- tion, a bill ot rights, or whatever one may choose to call it. '1 he Constitution of the L'nited States finds its reason for being in the Preamble in which our forefathers stated in a very few words not merely why we should have a Constitution, but why we should have a Lmted States. The Pie- amble defines the common object what the machinery described in the Constitution is ex- pected to do. Similarly an industrial democ- racy needs a statement of principle, a summary ot its reasons for beiivj, and the e\pivsMi>n ot t In- spirit which animates it. As a precedent to the installation of the actual machinery 1 always establish with both employer and employee 150 Man to Man a set of simple, elementary principles which I call the Business Policy. In Chapter III concerning the Packard Com- pany I have set forth the Business Policy in full. It is universal and invariable and in it will be found a rule to meet any situation whatsoever. It might all be expressed by a mere statement of the Golden Rule and I would so express it, had not the Golden Rule joined that class of indisputably good axioms which everybody agrees with and nobody follows. Therefore I have split the Gol- den Rule into five parts as follows: Justice, Economy, Energy, Cooperation, and Service. I invariably discuss each division of this busi- ness policy at a separate meeting and thus fix the attention of the people on the basic principles of fairness. The preliminary meetings to discuss and to adopt these platitudinous principles are highly important they open the campaign of selling the SQUARE DEAL to carry out the principles of the business policy. Justice, Economy, Energy, Cooperation, and Service have nothing of novelty they are basic. I simply aim to renew truths which are fundamental but which have become rusty iiulustri.il Democracy 151 through disuse. I convince not merely the workers, hut every person in interest including tht- difectors, if the business happens to be in corporate form. It is a mistake, in policy as well as in fact, to assume that lahor difficulties originate exclusively with the workers. It is not fair to assume that all workers are constitutionally shiftless and care- less and that all employers are paragons of virtue. Neither is it fair to assume the reverse. I have not yet found a case in which both parties were not more or less equally to blame. Most employ- ers and most employees will resent this statement and aver that their intentions are of the best. I cheerfully prant that most people have pood intentions and I am willing to let it po at that. The point is that the most splendid intentions will not, of themselves, accomplish anything. \\ hat we need is something to put pood intentions into effect, to make them active and not passive, and above all to make sure that they are practical and not merely comfortable points of view. '1 he business policy is intended to take all of the inten- tions out ot the abstractly pood class and pool them into a sinple working intention. I hat is the reason it is absolutely necessary for every 152 Man to Man person in the corporation to attend the pre- liminary policy meetings and there and then to pledge the same intentions. Tacking up a set of moral principles is very dif- ferent from discussing and adopting these prin- ciples in a united group. When the worker sees the employer pledging with him to do justice or to perform service he is more ready to believe that nothing is being "put over" on him. There is no possibility of success in practising Industrial Democracy without a common desire on the part of everyone to follow its principles. If the high officers of a corporation imagine that they can turn over the whole question to someone else and go on their several ways without a thought as to whether or not their people believe in them or the plant, or are at least open minded toward it, the experiment is sure to fail. Personally I will not undertake to instil the principles and to start the machine going unless I am entirely convinced that the management is sincerely anxious to bring about better understanding with the employees and willing to do its part to attain that under- standing. I will not accept a retainer merely to bring about better labor conditions; I will not act as an ambassador from the management to the Industrial Democracy 153 men, nor undertake anything which would fall into the class of "personnel manager." For if the managers do not show as keen an interest in carrying forward the principles of Industrial Democracy as they in turn expect from the men, if they expect merely to install a system and Ret rid of the personal bother once and for all, they have not the attitude which makes success even remotely possible. These human factors are of the highest import- ance. Before going forward with Industrial De- mocracy it is well for an executive clearly to get in mind what manufacturing really is and to de- termine the relative importance of men, money, merchandise, and buildings. I hold that the human asset is the largest. Ill-will is not a lia- bility, but a positive loss, and when it culminates in a strike it is seen in its true light. 'Hie exe- cutive's object, if he is something more than a machine, is to put good-will in the place of ill-will ; it is up to him to manufacture that condition of mind which we call good-will, just as much as it is up to him to manufacture any other finished prod- uct jout of the raw material that he buys. Hie finished product to be saleable must be good, and I take it as an axiom that without good-will 154 Man to Man within the works one cannot have good-will out- side the works. I hold to these three propositions: (/) In proportion to the harmony in the organi- zation so is the profit in the product. When you have the people, 75% of the business battle is won. (2) Manufacturing consists primarily in mak- ing men they will attend to the product. (j) The making of men involves the developing of the brain service of the whole human element and then concentrating this force along a specific line of action and toward a definite goal. The object of Industrial Democracy is to gain a collective human interest. It is perfectly pos- sible to gain it. So easily possible indeed that I look forward to a time when bankers will examine the human asset before they check the statement of condition when no appraisal of a corporation will be complete unless it contains a history of that corporation's relation with workers. I take it that we will come to regard the now familiar phrase "not responsible for strikes, lock-outs, or other delays beyond our control" as a confession of an inability to deal with the biggest asset of Inilustri.il Democracy 15; business, When a man sta'es as a fact tiiat he considers strikes and lock-outs as beyond his con- trol, lu- infercntJally states that he does not know how to do business that he simply is throwing up his hands and passing the solution of the human equation to luck. For business today is not the business of our forefathers; it is no longer individual; the hand craftsman has disappeared in all but a few trades; we do business collectively; no one man makes all of anything. The workman has lost his former individuality ami has become part of a great manu- facturing machine. Before the division of labor and application of power (which we call the indus- trial revolution) any man in almost any line might set up for himself with his bag of tools. But now he needs more than a bag of tools. lie needs machinery he needs capital. Even the smallest enterprise, for instance a tiny machine shop, repre- sents a greater investment than the average worker can lay by during a normal working lifetime. Capital, too, has undergone a change. Years ago a rich man was one who had broad acres and tenants. Today he is the man who holds the bonds or shares of an industrial adventure. His industrial adventure requires workers. His capi- 156 Man to Man tal, if not used, does not remain inert; it actually depreciates by a kind of erosion. The capitalist today is as helpless without the worker as is the worker without the capitalist. Capital and labor are not alike. They travel the same road only up to the division of profits; there the road forks and we do not yet know just how the profits may reasonably be divided. We do not know how much labor should have and how much capital should have certainly neither should have all the profit, for then the other must starve and die. Perhaps it has required the Rus- sian revolution to teach this lesson to the unthink- ing. There the workers thought to take all the profit of industry. Consequently capital has died and there is no industry. The interests are not identical, but they are complementary and in many aspects so nearly identical, that, with some reservations, they can be considered as identical. This identity unfortunately has only begun to be accepted. There is a feeling that capital may con- quer labor or labor may conquer capital and that the victor will not perish in his triumph. But if we clear our vision we cannot fail to see that modern business is not a question of a man or men repre- senting capital, hiring another group representing Industrial Democracy 157 labor to work for them and make their capital productive. Business is more than that. It has passed into the institution stage and its success depends upon the full cooperation of all members that is, depends upon the acceptance of a com* inon policy and a mutual aim. Yet we continue to compete. Old-fashioned owners expect people to work for thfm. Working Jor spells competition; working :cith is cooperation. It is to attain this 'forking with that my Business Policy was formulated. THE PAYMENT OF THE WORKERS I have given the basis and the mechanical work- ings of Industrial Democracy, but I have touched very lightly upon the subject of wages of the remuneration which should accompany a square d<> lowering quality ami volume of production and also that in thr highest paid institutions the rate of turnover of labor is Abnormally high. A worker will no more perform at his lust solely for money than will any other human being and, therefore, 1 am at variance with all modes of management wlml^Voncentrate upon the pay rather than upon the human interest. Take the familiar case of the production bonus. \\ e put a premium upon the amount of produc- tion rather than on the grade; we do not inculcate the habit of good work but transfer the operative's attention from the quality to the quantity. For a time he will undoubtedly produce in quantity by "speeding up," but because we, in effect, penali/.e him for care, he must go forward with an "anything goes" attitude. There is no question in my mind that the losses thus incident to detec- tive goods overcome the apparently increased efficiency. The aim of the workman should be to produce first-class articles and he will produce them if he has a pride and an interest in his work. But he cannot have that pride and interest it his output represents only dollars for quantity. The underlying principle of Industrial Dcmoc- 160 Man to Man racy is the square^deal. Starting with a desire to be fair makes fixing wages a very easy matter. The men themselves., through the machinery of democracy, will come to a consideration of their own wages with precisely the same method of ap- proach they would have were they paying those wages to someone else and not to themselves. I do not advise abolishing all wage scales with the introduction of democracy. To abolish all existing rates and to say to the workers "Now go to it. Fix your own," would only be invit- ing chaos. My course is simply to let the wages stand and trust to the people themselves to bring up increases or adjustments as the case may re- quire. They will do this fairly. I have had a very large number of instances in which a lower- ing of rates has voluntarily been asked, because under improved conditions the men were getting more for their work than they thought their services was worth. And yet I do not doubt that those very same men would have started a riot if the management had arbitrarily lowered the rates! The representative plan of Industrial Democracy will attend to wages more fairly than is possible for any member of the management, but with this one provision there must needs be Industrial Democracy 161 some payment on top oj wagts tuhich tvill ftprtstnt in monry iki interest and If tiff work. PROFIT SHARING The added payment, at first impression, would seem naturally to take the form of a share in the profits and there are many who advocate profit sharing without stock ownership as a way of bring- ing about a very desirable partnership between em- ployer and employee. There are also those who think that helping employees to buy stock will put them into a community of ownership with the corporation. Stock purchasing is to me aside from the ques- tion. I think that it is highly desirable that employees should own stock and I am in favor without reservation of practically all efforts in the way of inducing employees to purchase stock and of making their payments easy for them. The immediate difficulty is that the average em- ployee cannot possibly set aside sufficient money out of his pay to buy a large enough block so that the dividends on it appreciatively affect his in- come. Further, he docs not intimately connect his daily tasks with his semi-annual dividend he knows in a general way that work affects the 162 Man to Man dividends but he does not keep it before him every day and every minute the dividend periods are too infrequent. Therefore I take stock purchas- ing by employees primarily as an encouragement to thrift and not as an aid to a better industrial relation. Profit sharing without stock ownership considering the workers and the corporation as partners is on a different footing. Undoubtedly the phrase "profit sharing" is alluring. It seems very fair to share the fruits of industry to make the workers partners with the company. But is it basically sound? The stock- holders or the owners of an investment are not in like case with the workers. The one offers to gamble his money against the chance of profit; the worker is paid for his services for his con- tribution and he has no power to ensure that his efforts will result in a profit upon the capital. He knows that his work, well done, should result in a profit, but he does not know how many other considerations may step in to diminish that profit. He is not a co-manager; he is a worker. It is the decisions of others and not alone his work which determine profits. He can fairly ask that he re- ceive for that which he supplies his work but for nothing else. Are we not trying to mix oil Iiulustri.il Democracy i'; and water when we set- k to mix the return of the worker ami the profit of the corporation ? I can conceive that the wages might he con- sidered as a drawing account against profits ami that the stockholders and the workers could then pool their interests in the whole outcome; or again I can imagine a case where the worker might have enough to live on during the three or six months between settlement periods and then take his share. Hut in tin- plans which I have seen, tin- workers and the shareholders do not pool ilnir interests and it is out of the question to assume that workers can exist for several months without drawing pay. The usual profit-sharing scheme simply says that a certain portion <>f the net earr- ings applicable to dividends shall he set asid >% ami distributed to the workers according to their salaries. Sometimes only the executives are in- cluded, or a certain period of service must elapse before profits are shared, or again tin- distribution may be made to all who are in the employ at the particular time, \\hen the executives alone are included, the plan seems to woik because the executives are the ones who commonly have in their hands the making of profits. But the work- ers seldom consider the payment in its dividend 164 Man to Man phase. They regard it as a kind of bonus which reaches them without much rhyme or reason as manna from Heaven. Sufficiently educated employees may grasp corporation finance. If so, they are then entitled to a share in the determination of the profits to a distinct voice in the management. Such a voice is seldom given; it is rare to find directors elected by employees and still rarer to find them with any real say in management. As now con- stituted, profit sharing is only an arbitrary bonus. It is not mutual, for the workers cannot also be asked to bear losses; the stockholders have to bear losses the loss of the earning power of their money through the passing of a dividend or an actual depreciation of their capital invest- ment through the impairing of the capital fund. Practically considered, profit-sharing plans are ineffective with the workers because the dividend periods are too remote from their daily work and also because they do not understand the compli- cated accounting by which the payments are arrived at; thus the dividends do not help to interest them in the daily tasks. After a long investigation of many systems I have concluded that it is unfair to permit the Industrial Democracy 165 compensation of the worker to depend upon any factor which he does not control; he may do his work well and hnd that there are no profits be- cause the company did not sell at a proper price, or granted improper credits, or did any one of the thousand things which lose money. If under profit sharing he does his work and g-rs no divi- dend, he is very properly dissatisfied. I there- fore have thought out a plan of making the pay dependent upon only that which the workers accomplish. THE COLLECTIVE ECONOMY' DIVIDEND What regulates wages? The productive ca- pacity ot the individuals in the mass. Wages are not absolutely high or low; they are in comparison with the efficiency of production. Why not then base the increment to wages on the efficiency of production? That is my plan in a word. Here is how it works in practice. I take the cost of a unit of production in the period preceding the introduction of Industrial Democracy and com- pare that cost with the results after democracy has gone into effect. If there is a saving, then one-half that aggregate saving is the amount of the economy dividend for the period and is paid 1 66 Man to Man to the men as an added percentage to wages. This is a dividend upon service. It should be paid at intervals not longer than two weeks, to preserve it as a matter of current, everyday interest. I add to it the element of competition further to stimulate. I arrange for the award of a banner to the department which shows the greatest saving for the two weeks. The banner always a large American flag is a prized pos- session and is fought for in the field of greatest benefits-economy. The dividend is regularly calculated on the basis of the savings. Thus it fluctuates and this again increases interest, for it often is possible to post up just why the dividend is low absence of workers, carelessness, or what not. And then absence and carelessness take on a very definite money value. The economy dividend is not solely an account- ing affair; it is a relation of service with income and takes into account the savings in defective output, the better quality of the product, and the general betterment of the business. It is arrived at by thinking as well as by accounting. But how can such dividends be calculated in times of rising costs and how is it possible to say Industrial Democracy 167 that this or that economy was directly due to tin- work >f the employees? Take the second ques- tion first. All economies in production are not due to employees, but I have found, under Indus- trial Democracy, that the employees suggest the majority of improvements ahead of the manage- ment that they are very quick to discover how any tiling might he done better. And hence the agreement that they share m all economics effected works out very fairly. And if the management should make an improvement which was not the result of an employee's suggestion, the plan en- sures that it will be heartily put into operation. Now tor the first question the calculation of the dividends when costs are rising. Economy is a relative term. I calculate the rdaths saving in cost of production. Suppose wages, materials, etc., have risen 5O r t ', over a former period but pro- duction costs have gone up only 30%- then have not the production costs relatively decreased? I take it that they have and I award dividends upon this basis. In the case of a very large- dividend during a single period it may In- advis- able to distribute its payment over more than one period and in this case the undistributed surplus goes into an employee's dividend account for future i68 Man to Man distribution. For instance it would not pay to sandwich in a 50% dividend between two 15% ones. Another natural question is this: Will not the economies soon reach the limit and thus cut off the dividends? When they do reach that limit we can devise another plan, but when I consider the actual efficiency of manufacture as compared with its possible efficiency I think that none of us will live until the day when manufacturing per- fection has absolutely arrived. You will recall that the piano company (Chapter III) has de- veloped marvelously and yet has not even approached the limit. I think that the fear of per- fection is scarcely an objection! My eyesight has never been strong enough to see a limit to im- provement. ni.MTKR VIII IMH'STRIAI. IHMOCKACY, "Hi I 1 M1M.OYI 1 S, AND mi: t MOSS THK reaction upon the workers of t!u- spirit ot the square deal as administered through Industrial Democracy has in every case brought at least these live changes: /. .In :ncrt\:s;' a: p'oJuction. j. A dfCTca>f it: the cos! < t' production. ?. ./ dfcrfn^f in tr.f Lil-.r I:CT. j-.cr. .;. ,-/ Tf?uUii'\'>r. tk'Giighrr.i'. thf community as a dfsifiillf place to work i>: ar.d consfqutntly a grfaifr catf in hiring vifii. 5. .7?: immunity from strikes an.! other labor troubles. This has, I grant, some of the earmarks of the industrial millennium it sounds a hit too good to be true. I admit that often the results astound me until I reflect that I should he no more sur- prised by workmen in mass being efficient than by 170 Man to Man a single worker. It is simply that we have gotten into the habit of thinking that sloth and inatten- tion are the natural attributes of the man who works for hire. But it is just as natural for a man to exert the best that is in him when working in a shop as when playing on a baseball team. The real trouble is that we have denied him the opportunity and the reward for self-expression in the average factory; we have organized with so little attention to the human factor that we have in effect thrown away brain power and taken only body power. We have become so obsessed with the utility of machines that we have tried to make a machine out of a human being. Everyone grants that mere opportunism will not make a big man that the larger material successes in life are the products of imagination as much as of any other quality; but we forget that these same qualities are useful in every sphere of life that each job, no matter how big or how small, is capable of expansion. One frequently hears the term "unskilled worker"; it serves well enough as a designation for the man who has no particular trade, but it should not be the classifica- tion of a job. There are no tasks which do not re- quire some measure of skill if the whole of the task Industrial Democracy 171 is to IK- realized. Industrial Democracy sptrdilv transforms "unskilled" jobs and in a perfectly natural way. A task needing little dexterity is usually subsidiary to a more skilled one; in a way it feeds to it. The trained worker is the rirsr to grasp the opportunities of working :i i:k the employer and very quickly he takes notice of the meptness of the laborer and at once proceeds to instruct him to make him a skdled laborer. The passing of the common laborer is immediately reflected in the labor turnover; it has been wrongly thought that one man was about as good as an- other in these classes and not much attention has been paid to them they hare been allowed to come and go almost without remark. The waste through having "unskilled labor" about has been prodigious; no one has been able even to estimate it. It is inevitable that the cooperative feeling should extend to bringing up the grade of the laborer and giving him a future. Commonly he is disregarded by the other workers; they call him a "wop" and dismiss him as such. But with the economy dividend, cooperation has a definite money value; what another man is or is not doing becomes a financial as well as a moral concern to 172 Man to Man his fellow. It is money out of pocket to have him loafing or going about his task in snail fashion. And the other workers quickly see to it that no man about the place does loaf something which no boss could possibly do. The "unskilled worker" is eliminated in Industrial Democracy because he is not efficient he is eliminated not in the flesh but in the spirit. He is made over into a new being. EFFECT ON PRODUCTION The cooperative exertion at once makes itself felt in production although I have never stressed quantity of output. My theory of business is that quality should control quantity and that thi truly successful enterprise is that which makes the best in its line at the price. It may also turn out the most, but I regard that as secondary that quantity must never overshadow quality. A uniformly first grade of production ensures a con- tinuity of demand that makes for stable, profit- able business. But greater production is an in- evitable sequence to putting the heart into the work. You cannot drive a man as fast or as far as he will go of his own tense will and this has been proven to me time and again. Self pro- Industrial Democracy 173 polled, workers will make, and without effort, production records that could scarcely be at- tained by inhuman "speeding up"; they use so little effort that they are surprised when they see the figures! In some instances it is possible to point our specific mechanical improvements which are responsible for part of the increase, but always the really big improvements have been personal and not mechanical -human improve- ments that product- new machines ami methods. The pace -Joes not come from "speeding up" as under the Taylor and other efficiency plans; it Comes from within, not from without. I take the general leavening as much more important than single noteworthy performances team play as more important than individual star plays. Look at a few records of what has been accom- plished without additions of equipment and sometimes with an actual decrease of personnel: An Ohio steel fabricating plant paid riveters 37.8 cents and 2^.3 cents per hour in April, 1917. and the record for the assembly room then stood at 15.017 rivets; exactly four months later they were paying 47.2 cents and 35.4 cents respectively to the same classes of men, but the average of rivets had risen to iS,7. This is only one of the 174 Man to Man many cases where wage increases have brought cheaper production. At the Atlantic Refining Company of Cleve- land the production increase per dollar paid in wages (the real economy) is represented by these startling figures: April, 18%; May, 21%; June, 33i%; July* 44%; August, 74%. The Kaynee Company, makers of blouses, in ten months increased their business 34%. For- merly they had worked many nights and most Sundays in an effort to keep abreast of orders; they made this remarkable increase, but were able also to do all the work in shorter daily hours than before and without any overtime whatso- ever. The Printz-Biederman Company of Cleveland reports a production nearly 50 % in advance of all previous records with a net increase of per- fectly made garments and a net decrease in the cost of manufacture, at the same time increasing wages and decreasing hours. A textile manu- facturer increased production one-third within a year and also eliminated all overtime and Sun- day work and cut the day from ten to nine hours. The American Multigraph Company, because of the cooperative, interested spirit of the employ- Iiulustri.il Democracy 175 cos, increased more than 40% over its former st.tiul.iul for a year. Hut what is more important than these startling increases in production is the fact that in every case the quality of the product bettered as greatly as the production. It is an approach to perfec- tion when quality increases with quantity. Put is real manufacturing! These results have not been attained (as I have tried to show in the preceding chapters) in any one line ot work or with any one class of workers. Industrial Democracy is in operation with makers of women's wear, men's clothing, boys' waists, paper bags, pianos, steel, automobile parts, paints, furniture, tobacco pipes, textiles of various sorts, and in several machine shops. The workers are both male and female and hail from all classes, some American, many foreign, some speaking English, some speaking little or none. In bhorr, we have tried out Industrial Democracy with every possible combination and permutation of labor and in nearly every section of the industrial East in small towns and in large cities. I can find no single controlling circumstance running through these various installations of such a common nature as to permit one to ascribe sue- 176 Man to Man cess to anything other than the basic spirit of the organized "square deal." HOW THE WORKERS RECEIVE THE PLAN It must not be imagined, however, that the work- ing people have been eager from the start for demo, cratic government. They have not been eager for anything but high wages for little work. Rather, that is what they all think they want but really they never know what they want. They are restless in hopeless fashion; they bay at the moon, they work for this or that generally in terms of money, but are never satisfied when they get the money. In no case have they thought of self-government. The English labor party in its "platform" asks for a greater share in the management of industry, but I suspect that this is largely a socialistic demand and that Mr. Arthur Henderson would be at a loss to suggest specific ways to put the ideas into force. In America I have not discovered any apparent de- sire to participate in management; in fact, the tendency of the union has been to discourage any steps to make the relations between employer and employee other than one of bargain and sale. I have found no particular welcome for my ideas; I Industrial Democracy 177 have usually been received with suspicion as a "guv" rakrn on the management to "put some- thing over." \\Y have talked too much, preached too much at employees. \Ve have tended toward moralizing ami senr.om/ing as from a pulpit and have as- sumed that only the men were at fault. I hat is the trouble with most "welfare work" it stoops down to uplift the "fallen worker"; it dots not regard him as a reasoning human being, hut as some kind <>t an animal which ought to he taught to live as living is dehned hy the welfare worker. I have no quarrel WIMI what welfare work teaches; I think it is lis'j.t that shops should he as clean and pretty as the circumstances will pennir. that employees should live in neat houses and have flowers, and that they should have full oppor- tunity for education. Hut I take it that all of these tilings are merely incident to employment that they are a duty. What I do not like is the welfare- work of what might he called an e\ ange- lisiiC character directed hy the too common type ot .social worker who is a product of some charity organization the kind of worker who noses about in the homes and stops at no invasion of private life. That sort of uvlfare work does a . *"Vr 4. ' ' > 1 ' I 178 Man to Man deal of harm because only the most ignorant of foreigners will not resent prying and meddling. Therefore when I begin to talk of Justice I must always overcome the strong sentiment against one-sided preaching; I have early to demonstrate that what I say applies to the management as well as to the men and that we are all on exactly the same plane. The second big suspicion is that I am a disguised efficiency man and that I am going to pull some new "speeding up" stunt out of my bag. The very large number of first-class efficiency men have had the misfortune to be classed with the com- paratively few charlatans who masquerade as experts. Indeed the best men in the profession have adopted the title of "industrial engineers" to try to get away from the prejudice against false efficiency. The trouble with the "fake" experts is that they have seldom done more than wholly upset working conditions in trying to transform men into machines, quite regardless of the men themselves. Thus they have earned a great measure of ill-will by making unpleasant tasks even more unpleasant, and aided by the welfare department, have fostered the idea that employers generally are trying to produce a race Industrial Democracy of healthy, docile work horses. (J. K. Chesterton has so stamped all the English welfare effort. The socialistic labor agitators have not lost a chance to add to this idea and, unfortunately, some very well-meaning capitalists have played up to the opinion by posing as benevolent despots. Thus I have at least a double-barrelled suspi- cion to overcome and it is not an easy task to get down to a footing of mutual trust. It takes weeks and weeks to replace- ill-will with good-will; my practice is not only to create interest in the busi- ness policy of morality by straight, simple talks, but also to go about among the men in man-to- man fashion, to talk with them and generally to get on a basis of trust and friendship. I like to do tiiis: I could not do it were I not sincere in my conviction that I can do no greater work in life than to spread the doctrines of Industrial IX- mocracy, and thus give hope to workers. It is a task for which absolute sincerity is a prerequisite. It is right at this point that the personal ele- ment enters in the introduction ot democracy as I have mentioned in the preceding chapter. In even the fairest shops there are many petty injustices done from day to day which never come to the attention of the higher executives; foremen i8o Man to Man will tyrannize now and again, workers will haze unpopular associates; pay masters will make errors and, often in the lofty manner assumed by some clerks, refuse to correct them. These little incidents make for hard feelings they are held against the owners and, before getting on a broad, firm plat- form of justice, it is quite necessary to see that little injustices do not exist. Once the machinery of Industrial Democracy is working, these matters are taken care of, but in the early days it is well to make sure that they are corrected at first hand. It might well be that no member of an existing management could sufficiently gain the confidence of the people to do his selling work, but that is an individual matter. The big thing is to make certain that it is not only done, but done in entire sincerity. Selling basic ideas of fair play through the suc- cessive meetings for the adoption of the Busines? Policy is in reality a course fitting for democracy. Just as it would be unwise to turn a monarchy overnight into a complete democracy so is it un- wise to make a sudden change in the management of a company. It is better to go at it gradually, first to inculcate the principles upon which you are to proceed and to educate the people to a con- Industrial Democracy 181 ception of the functions which arc to be placed with them. Perhaps they start with a notion that capital and labor are of necessity antagonistic; often I know that they do approach from that angle and, if at once pur in control, they might rival the Russian Soviets in the distance of their circumlocutions. I am not sure that they would; there is a very fair amount of common sense in every group of workmen in America; they may talk wildly when they are merely talking to arouse, but when it comes to action they are law abiding to the last degree. They are nor Russian peas- ants. However, it makes for smooth process for all to have a common intention from the start. Developing the common intention creates interest, and when the democratic orgam/ation finally arrives the people have a very definite idea of what is to be done. I have had many rabid socialists and a few anarchists in my meetings; I welcome them. Once they become convinced <>f the essential fair- ness ot the plan, they use their undoubted forensic talents to aid in development. No matter how destructively a worker may talk our of meeting I find that as a legislator h is conservative that he will :u '. fry to derange his own people. There 1 82 Man to Man seems to be a vast difference between prescribing for the world at large and prescribing for the men and women right in the neighborhood. Abstract theories fall before the stone walls of fact. Curiously enough the votes of the legislative bodies in Industrial Democracy tend to the con- servative and incline toward the company rather than toward the workers. Indeed sometimes laws are passed which seem too harsh and the Cabinet finds it necessary to ask for modifications to lessen the severity. This is particularly the case with re- spect to penalties for absences and the like, where- by dividends or parts of dividends are forfeited. The dividend provides the legislatures with a weapon which they are sometimes too prone to use; they underestimate the force of public opinion which is their real weapon and, factory fashion, think that a penalty should always be provided. The punishment nearest at hand and easiest to enforce is the forfeiting of a dividend or a part thereof. Sometimes they thus make the penalty too great. As they grow in legislative experience, they find that money penalties are not the most efficient and they are sparing with them. The.fully developed spirit of cooperation resting on public opinion is shown in this communication from a Iiulijsiii.il DcmovT.uy i w : committee of the House of th<- Printz-Bicdcrmaii Company on the shortening of v,oik hours: June I, 1915. To TTI F HorsK or RrrnFsFNT<\Tivri: Your Committee appointed t-> drjft a bill recommend, ing t!ic reduction of the working hours to 48 hour* per week, and recommending the necessary rules and regulations applying to such a change, submits the following for your approval: \Vc recommend thjt the working hours be- reduced from 4<;J hours to 4$ hours per week. In consideration of the foregoing the employees of th Print/- Im-derman Company guarantee their earnest co- operation to give 48 hours of actual service. 1 Ins dots not mean any harder work on the part of any individual it merely means increasing each individual's efficiency as a workman, and the elimination of all things which now cause loss of time. The greatest loss of time now occars through the following causes: 1 ardtness in arrival. Leaving the work before closing time for washing up and changing clothes. Conversation during working hours. Misuse of the toilets. As a hrst consideration, we wish, however, to recommend the following plan for the elimination of tardiness: An honor system should be m.ide, similar to that followed out in the grammar grades, that is those people ha>mg a perfect record of bein^ on time every day in the wtik should have their names appear on the bulletin boards, aUo those having satisfactory records. Kvery few weeks or so, con- venient to the time urticc, there could be ported a record of 1 84 Man to Man those names that appeared the greatest number of times on the weekly notices, and a reward granted. The reward, how- aver, is optional. In order to make 48 hours not only a reality, but a success, these things which at present cause so much loss of time must be eliminated. This Committee, therefore, recommends that each individual be advised by a personal notice regarding this recommendation, and asked to give their best cooperation to prevent loss of time for any of the above reasons. It will be necessary for each individual to be prompt in his atten- dance not only in the building, but at his work. That is, each one should be ready to work when the bell rings and should not leave his work until the closing bell. In the event of the adoption of this resolution, we suggest that a warning bell be sounded five minutes before the regular working bell, both in the morning ard at noon. Of course, it is to be understood that it is necessary to wash the hands quite often during the summer months in order to prevent the garments from being soiled. This should in no way affect the consideration of this resolution. Time lost because of the management of the factory should in no way affect this resolution. If there is any time lost in any department because there is no work on hand, the individual employees are not responsible. However, every- one should cooperate to eliminate as much of this as possible and should not hesitate in recommending plans which might better these conditions. It is further recommended that the foremen be on time to give their service to assist this Committee in the elimination of tardiness. It has been deemed advisable to recommend no punish- ment for the individuals who do not comply with these re- quests, especially when each must realize the effort which must be put forth to make the 48 hour week practicable. It is to be under :tood that those who do not comply with these Industrial Democracy 185 ni art er>nJfmninf tkf 4$ Aoar Ktek ar-.J art fc.'.Vf/V Ittfitk. It it further recommended that three member* of t'tis Committee he permanent member* anil they, together with three members appointed by the Senate, shall be eirxrcfrd to submit necessary rules and regulation! a% thry are required, which shall guarantee that every employee, re^ardies* of any condition, d<> his part in the furtherance of giving 4 hours of service -these rules and regulations M be approved by the Senate and the House of Representatives. The working period to be from 7:15 to 4:4; with forty-five minutes for lunch on five days of the week and 7:1^ t>> Il:?o on Saturday, beginning Monday, June 7th. I he rea .on the Committee recommends these hours is in order that the em- ployees may avoid the rush hour on the cars in the. evening and also it was felt that fifteen minutes at this time of the day \\ould be nvre appreciated than in the morning. It was the opinion of the members of the Committee that those who ha\ e had ditf.cuhy in bcin.; on time at 7:15 \\ould hud it no easi r to be on time at 7:30, or any other hour which Plight h<- adopted. Respectfully submitted, 1 HI CoMMirnT, 1 1. \\ rr.i H, C'!::-.ir::inn. I have not found anywhere a desire to chair;-- the. general internal workings of the shop or t > ihs- pense witli local executive control hy the fnr--nu-n. The foremen, it must he remembered, sit in the Senate and thus are part of the legislature. 1 hey have, as noted in the cases, a joint law-making power with the workers and through the proceed- ings and votes of the House quickly learn the senti- 'i86 Man to Man ment of the people. They are stripped of arro- gant power by reason of the right of appeal and investigation. Every employer knows that one of the most prolific sources of discontent flows out of petty tyranny by foremen. The men who come up from the ranks are proverbially the harsh- est task masters. Nothing has arisen to lessen or displace the authority of the foreman or sub-foreman, but there is no room in Industrial Democracy for the autocratic subordinate who does not share in the spirit of the new freedom. And this is as it should be. It is of the utmost importance to the manage- ment that no foreman who cannot cooperate with the men should hold his place. They must be -**.-'' A . * leaders and not drivers. Generally I have found, however, that the foremen fall very quickly into line that they are really glad to have the oppor- tunity to work with their people and that the pose of absolutism has been assumed through a fancied necessity and not because of desire; they are quite as ready to drop it as the men are to have them. The misfits are few, and they are real mistakes which should have been corrected in any event. The right to review by the workers does not operate to lessen the foreman's authority; rather lruiustri.il Democracy 187 it tends to strengthen it. Both he and the worker know that bluffing is out of tin- question; that an investigation will uncover tlu- truth. Hcnct- the worker will not kick for the mete love of kicking, inn the foreman exert authority because he likes the feeling of power. Orders are not given with- out a comprehension of their justness and there- fore tlu-v are given surely in the confidence that they should he obeyed; and they are obeyed. A worker cannot refuse to obey because he thinks the order is unjust; he must do what he is told. The rules are absolute on thar point, for otherwise discipline would be replaced by argu- ment, which everyone agrees would be destruc- tive. There has never been manifested thr least tendency toward holding obedience in a!n \ ance pending an appeal, as did the Russian soldiers so disastrously. On the contrary, the order must be carried out and its justice later inquired into. And there arc really very few appeals or requests lor investigations of grievances I can almost count them on my ringers throughout all the plants where Industrial Democracy is working today. People are much more exercised over their right to appeal than actually to appeal; the : '.;;ht to have justice tends to promote justice. 1 88 Man to Man But suppose an appeal is taken and resolved against a foreman and in favor of the worker; does not that put the worker in a bad position? Will not the foreman hold it against him ? One would imagine so. But such is not the case. The foreman seldom harbors any particular resent- ment, nor does the victorious worker "crow"; the one swallows his defeat and the other his victory. For each knows that it will not be profitable to keep up the row, bring on another investigation, and possibly run the risk of dismissal. Of course one finds, as in everyday life, a few nuisances with a passion for litigation, but they are either reformed or gotten rid of by the workers themselves. LABOR TURNOVER Without a mutuality of work, the hiring and fir- ing of men is not of concern to the employees and only of incidental interest to the foremen. A foreman thinks it is a perfectly good excuse to say: "I could have gotten that out but I did not have the men." But firing men is not cooperation and also it cuts dividends. The Senate holds foremen respon- sible for the turnover within their sections when a man is discharged, some good explanation must Indtistri.il Democracy he given even if the matter has not come up on* appeal. Ami wht-n a man leaves voluntarily the foreman is expected to know why and to l>r able to say what he did to prevent the going. The labor it-cord has great weight in determining a foreman's standing with the Senate and if th<- turnover is abnormally high he is sure to be investigated. That cuts out indiscriminate firing by foremen. Hut I think, ir is the men themselves who have the greatest effect upon turnover. The older hands know that once a man clearly understands the principles of democracy and the square deal, he will not want to leave and they take it upon themselves that no workers Lave simply through a failure to appreciate conditions. Tin- turnover among the men is generally very low indeed; when one omits the withdrawals due to the draft, death, or illness it is rare for any working man to seek a new job, provided he has stuck for three months. \Ye everywhere take ir as a surprising event to have a man leave for higher wages or any of the common causes of job shitting. Such things simply do not occur, because the spirit of fellowship is so great that there is no desire to "float" and the economv dividend makes such a satisfactory addition to wages that it is seldom 190 Man to Man that men can be bid away. This has been the universal experience in all of the installations. There must be some hiring; in a large force changes are bound to occur in personnel through unpre- ventable causes and also there is always the matter of taking on additional men to meet the needs -of increased production. Since the beginning of the war it has been almost as hard to hire men as o keep them, but not a single plant under Indus- trial Democracy has had the slightest difficulty in hiring men, although none of them have been able to offer wages approaching those of the munition workers. The news of square dealing travels rapidly; it is not necessary to advertise it the men about soon learn of it and they seek the jobs instead of insisting, as is the rule in these times, that the jobs seek them. Not a single one of the plants has found it necessary to adver- tise for workers, except in the cases where new departments for government work were opened. In nearly all of the plants there are waiting lists of applicants for jobs. THE ATTITUDE OF THE UNIONS Since all disputes and wage matters pass through the deliberative bodies elected by the Industrial Democracy i >i people themselves, the opportunity for strikes from within does not exist. There has never been a strike in the history of Industrial Democ- racy. But how about strikes from without? How about the unions and the closed shop? Are all of these shops open? Let me give some incidents. The Print/- Bicderman Company had an open shop, although many of the employees were union members. On September, 1915, the Garment Makers' I'nion decided to unionize Cleveland and to start with this shop. I he employees heard ot the intention through the newspapers; the Senate and the House passed a resolution and it was ratified by the general mass meeting. Here is t lie- resolution: Whereas the article appearing in the 1*1 ^in Dfilfr under this date and attached hereto conveys a false impression con- cerning the working conditions in our factory and further indicates our plant as the object of an unjust attack; we, the employers in the 1 louse of Representatives, and Senate, specially assembled this third day of September; Resolved, that the action of the l'rint/-Biederman Cv, in giving us for the past two years such full authority to change any and all working conditions in our plant is fully appreciated by the whole bodv of employees, numbering about l.ooo people and it is Resolved, that we. the employees of the Prinw-Biedcrrnan O> , hereby express our str >ri^ disapproval ot the a, : >n tAcn 192 Man to Man by an outside organization as shown in the proposed demand referred to in this newspaper article, and be it further Resolved that we tender to our company our most earnest and sincere support for the present most fair methods of conducting the business. If we knew any stronger language of expressing our full satisfaction, we would use it. Chairman, House of Representatives. President, Senate. The union never presented a demand. The agi tators left town that night. At a metal working plant in Fort Wayne, Indiana, a mass meeting of the employees voted against a closed shop on the simple principle that they did not think it just to force any man out be- cause he had not a union card. A majority of that meeting were union members. The shop did not have a strike, but later strikes were called in every other machine shop in that city which did not close to non-union men. From this it might be imagined that Industrial Democracy is opposed to union organization. It is not. It sees no point of conflict; that has also been the view taken by union leaders when they have come into actual contact with it. In every case wages are as high or higher and hours as short or shorter than the union scale for the district. There can be no serious disputes result- Industrial Democracy 193 ing in breaks. For, jusr as the people of the United States, no matter how bitterly they con- test an election, always accept the decision of the ballot, so it seems do both employees and employ- ers when put upon the same basis of government. CHAPTER IX INDUSTRIAL DEMOCRACY AND THE EMPLOYER DOES granting a measure of autonomy to the worker lessen or strengthen the author- ity of the employer? We are not anxious for any dividing up of prop~ erty or for proletarian control, or for anything which smacks of them. The president, directors, and other officers of a corporation are, in a sense, trustees of the funds which have been placed in their hands for operation. Regardless of their personal views on social subjects they are not, under the rules of common honesty, at liberty to try any fantastic experiments which might cause their trust to be dissipated. An individual, as long as he protects his creditors, may play any sort of game he fancies with his money, but cor- porate directors are not in like case. They are not expected to take chances other than those ris- ing in the ordinary course of business. They should approach every problem with a consider- able degree of conservatism; not with hide-bound 194 Iiuliistri.il Democracy iv5 and impervious mind-', nor with intelligence chained and fettered In precedent, but with open minds, with the keen desire "to be shown" attitude. 1 here an- limits to conservatism. Plunging wildly ahead in the il.uk may be !e-s dangerous to the welfare of a corporation th.m crouching fearsonuly in the darkness. I ir- plunging may end crashing against a wall or again ir may find the way our. But the fear-palsied are hound to stay where they are. Conservatism is a virtue not to he confused with ahject mental inertness- with "standing pat." In the.se stirring times no one can afford to sir still. When evolution ceases, revolution hemns. \\ e have problems all ahour us which will no; solve themselves. A doctrine of '.r. ;s:~z ].::": i-; as dangerous to an industrial unit as to a nation. \\ e are constantly rinding ourselves face to face with unprecedented sit tuitions. \\ e can take it as an a\:o:u that tlu- measure of the success i>! anv business ;n the future \\ill be precisely in accorj- aruv witli tin- fle\ibi!;f.- it sho-.vs \\\ aJaptinL; itself to new conditions. 1 ake manufacturing. 1 he properties of raw materials will not changi \ve ma\ have t^ learn to use diitVrer.r kinds of material^, bur tiiat ij 196 Man to Man beside the question; it may continue for a few years to be harder to buy than to sell; then prob- ably it will become hard to sell and easy to buy. But the ordinary machinery of commerce will remain essentially as it is now. Then where will the great change come ? In that element for which we have as yet no gauge the human factor in business. Our human resources will change. They are now out of tune with industry. The relation of employer and employee is in a state of suspended animation. There are few who will deny that we urgently need a new relation between capital and labor. Those who call themselves "radicals" insist that the Government find this new relation. I am not myself convinced that the Government can happily adjust industry. I should personally view the wholesale regulation of business by the Government, once the war is ended, as an evidence that the business man is incapable of adjusting himself to new conditions and has to appeal to politicians to do it for him. The big man sees these facts; he looks them squarely in the face. The little man lacks the courage to view facts; he hopes to avoid them by shutting his eyes. The big man realizes that up Iiulustri.il Democracy 197 to tlu- present tune "hands" only have been cm- plo\ed ami the biggest of them regret that they did not see years ago that human beings have also "heads" which can be of service in business; beads and brains, capable of adding intelligence to the work of the hands. The big man furrhei knows that he cannot gain the use of brains bv national edict; that IK- can persuade them to work only through some process of cooperation. A static conservatism in these dynamic times is not a virtue. I lie real question which now confronts the owners or trustees of any business is this: "How can we adjust the human relationships in our business so that we may continue to he factois in commerce? " One need no longer tear to take steps lest one endanger the investment -the investment is already in danger. The question now is to save it. \\ e are fond <'l talking about the permanency oi our business orgam/ations; we like to think that they can inn on and on, regardless <>t the individ- uals in charge; that tlu-v are vast machin-. s pro- pelled by natural eternal forces and n<>r by tians- ient human beings. I have yet to hiul Mich an organization. 198 Man to Man Many businesses have evidences of permanency, but a close investigation of some of them uncovers the fact that they are really running on momen- tum and it is well to remember that momentum spends itself if the executives do not add the force of new ideas. Every live, successful business depends ultimately upon the energy and discern- ment of one man. A few companies are fortu- nate enough to have an unbroken succession of competent executives. Generally, however, if you plot the curve of success in any business you will find that the peaks happened when a strong man sat in the executive chair and that the valleys came about when a weak man held down the chair. Some parts of an enterprise may be made almost mechanical. To some degree you can reduce finance, and to a very large degree buying, making, and selling, to plans and methods which do not require more than ordinary, average intelli- gence to direct. But there is one side of business which up to date has not been charted the human element. The big man succeeds and the little man fails, although they may be alike in technical skill because the big man knows how to manage the human element and the little man does not. If you will run over the roster of most Industrial Democracy i of our hip individual successes Schwab, J. J. Hill, John II. Patterson, Ford, Marshall Field, Armour you will discover that none of them founded success upon technical expert ness as much as upon an ability to persuade men to:tork '.nth them. The greatest of men cannot do more than develop the cooperation of those with whom they come in contact. Individuals die; persons vary in their thinking from day to day and frequently arc defective in their thinking, but principles arc permanent. Would not business attain a greater permanency if founded upon a principle rather than upon an individual? Or, neglecting for a moment the permanency, would not the business genius find a greater play for his remarkable talents were In- able to free himself from the intimate day-to- day supervision of employees? I know of many successful men who take the direction of their labor as their first duty and pass fully half of their day mixing with employees. They find they can delegate almost the whole management excepting where it touches the human being. I do not know of a single manage- ment which has had harmonious labor relations and has not been a success. Neither do I know of 2oo Man to Man any institution having continuous labor difficulties which has been successful when compared with its opportunities. Labor troubles are at the root of most business troubles. A fight between labor and capital is, if long enough continued, bound to result in the annihilation of capital. There must be evolved some plan to show men how to get along together some way that will be just to all parties in interest to labor, to capital, and to the public. For it is to be remem- bered that a settlement between capital and labor will be but temporary unless the third party in interest the publics be considered. That is the trouble with the financial settlements which are being made today amid the stress of war. They are exclusively for the momentary benefit of only capital and labor; they do not at all consider the public that pays the bills and without which neither can exist. Edward A. Filene, the Boston merchant, recently made this illuminating remark: "No adjustment between the employer and the employee can be considered worth while, or of eventual benefit to either, unless it also results in lessening the cost of service to the consumer." The question with which I opened this chapter that is, the effect of Industrial Democracy upon Iiulustri.il Democracy 201 thr control of tin- investment would 1 more accurately phras. d: "Can Industrial Democracy give Midi control of thr investment that it may not only be saved but also strengthened?" Kverv far-seeing, forehanded management knows that it must make a rhair^ - ifi: i. t > retain control. Now look at the effect of Industrial Democracy upon t!ie management. I.: t us see what it does to the investor's none',' and to the public. It is all very well to make the workers happy, hut the end of business i> profit. A policy which abandons proht in order t<> give content- ment to employees creates an orgam/ed chanty a self-supporting, eleemosynary institution. On the other hand, we know that profit gained at the expense of the workers, wrung from them, is not only unwholesome and unsavory money, but also of a purely ephemeral character. Cheating work- ers is just as bad policy as cheating customers. Although we talk a deal about democracy, we are unfortunately afraid to practice it. \\Y teel, even if we do not say, that it in ay be an instru- ment wielded by those who /:utr ;: .', to take away from those who ha*.-c; we mix it with communism, with common ownership instead of with common 202 Man to Man control, in spite of the fact that in the democracy as developed by the United States, the citizens do not usually insist upon carting home the bricks of the public buildings to demonstrate that they have an ownership in them. Industrial Democ- racy is, from the employer's standpoint, repre- sented by a change of spirit and not by a change in the relative rights of ownership. It is simply a hitching up of labor and capital. It is removing the great power of cooperation from the field of fancy to that of actual, accomplished fact. The several departments of the business function as before; no powers are withdrawn; only remedies are set up for the abuse of power. Nothing but ill-will is taken out of the business. Industrial Democracy is not a weakening, it is a strengthening; it is a providing of a mechanism to secure fair play and satisfaction; an infusion into the business of the propelling mental instinct. It is a change from a purely bureaucratic govern- ment to one of representation. We all know how infinitely silly a government bureaucracy can become, but we do not stop to think that a business bureaucracy can easily be as foolish; the languid, sneering, brainless government clerk who rouses in one the will to murder is full brother of Industri.il Democracy 203 the tired maiden who presides over the switchboard of the- hurcaucrancallv managed business office. Neither is a human being during working hours; they belong to that strange species known as the bureaucr.it. 1 he description of a governmental board as something long, and narrow, and wooden, applies equally to a hoard of directors which keenly feels the absolutism of its powers. Kew men care to be tsars. I hey do not like the trouble which the exercise of absolute power en- tails; they would be glad to have someone else around to do a little thinking now and again instead of merely executing orders'. Such a man finds no difficulty in acting as the chief executive under a democratic form of management. I It- issues his orders as before and they are executed; but when it comes to orders affecting matters of policy with the employees, instead of issuing an order, he makes a suggestion. If he is a real leader and a wise man his suggestion will have in it so much common sense that it will be enacted by the legislative bodies into law and then be heartily obeyed. If lie is not a leader and has no right to be in the position, his orders will be un- wise and therefore his suggestions in Industrial Democracy will not be put into effect as regula- 2O4 Man to Man tions. If he is discerning he will see that he has been saved from error; if he has not the discern- ment to know a mistake when it is pointed out to him, he should not be in a position to dictate. The man who has a right to be an executive will find that his powers are increased and made more effective. From the executive standpoint Industrial Democracy may be viewed as proof of the right to a position; from the investor's stand- point it presents itself as the most conclusive test of the fitness of the executives. For the individual executive the transition is easy; if he has thoroughly grasped the Business Policy, he really does not know that he has made a transition. Only the insincere man will find the going hard; he will have endless difficulties and he will fail. It is not easy for a man, who for many years has considered himself a tsar, to re- linquish his title, even though his head has become weary and the crown of power so heavy that it has slipped down over his eyes and blinded him to the facts. Such men are incapable of function- ing in democratic government and I think the general opinion of business is that such men no longer belong in industry. In two instances, and in only two, has Industrial Industrial Democracy 205 Democracy been abandoned ami in both cases it was abandoned because tbe executives belonged to the Kaiser type tli.it I have just described. 'Hie system did not fail; it was unqualifiedly suc- cessful. 1 he two cases ate fundamentally alike. The one was a metal working shop in the Middle West, the other a large clothing factory in the East. The presidents were the founders ami practically the owners <>{ the enterprises. Each of them had been brought up in tin- <>ld school of "bossing," of having their most trivial expres- sions taken as the law by those around them. Each had the attitude of "What I say goes" and any one who disputed tl.eir statements went forthwith and with a celerity approaching pre- cipitancy. They had ruled their establishments with iron, although not always unkindly, hands; were, according to their lights, humane; but when they conceded a point they felt that they were being charitable and paternal and not simply just. Their morality was not unlike that of the Sadducees. They considered their employees as dependents and not as co-workers. 1 hey felt that they were not as other nun. for they had, out of the vast depths of their abilities, created institutions which provided work and saved poor '2o6 Man to Man unfortunates from starvation. They dismissed from mind that they themselves were incidentally making millions. But I may say that their opinions were exclusive and personal; no one else shared them. The day came in each institution the day that always comes when the workers asked for more money and fewer words. The strike spectre loomed on the horizon and these strong, brave men, accustomed to bullying help- less individuals, quailed before the thought of mass action. For the time being they were ready to do anything to bring peace the milk of human kindness fairly bubbled out of them. I made the mistake of thinking that they were sincere and I consented to go forward with the work of intro- ducing Industrial Democracy. In both cases I thoroughly sold the workers on the spirit of Justice, Economy, Energy, Coopera- tion, and Service, and established Cabinets, Sen- ates, and Houses of Representatives. The strike talk stopped, the men went ahead whole-heartedly. Here is what the general manager of the metal plant had to say of the results after the plan had been in operation for nearly a year: "First, increased efficiency by the enlistment of interest and thought on the part of the employees. Industrial DcmcxTacy 207 "Second and possibly the more important the building of stronger, broader men and women by giving them broader responsibility and wider vision, as by this method they are afforded an opportunity of seeing the problems of other de- partments and of the business as a whole. I his results in a feeling of brotherhood and ct the employees practically disappeared in short, a complete regeneration was under way and all bur completed. Everyone noted the marked changes and was delighted. I know now that the apparent executive con- version was only for the moment. As tune went bv, lulled by an apparent sense of security, they began to disregard, rirst in little things and then in larger onw*, the principles of the Business Policy. I hey interfered with the orderly workings of the machinery of democracy and. little bv little, be- 208 Man to Man gan to suspend its functions. They opposed the calling of mass meetings; they pigeonholed bills and resolutions of the House and Senate, until gradually these bodies found that it was useless to meet. The attendance dropped off and finally they quit their sessions altogether and Industrial Democracy died a lingering death. As the prac- tices were abandoned the good-will that had been accumulated evaporated; the old feeling of distrust came back with new force, and my last accurate information on either of these companies was that their condition today was worse than ever before, because the people who remained had lost all faith in the integrity of the owners. These cases are very instructive as showing what will inevitably happen if the employer is not sincere, if he does not remake himself accord- ing to the model set up for the whole company. There is no room for the double standard. If the employer violates any of the principles of the Business Policy, if he does not keep the pledge of Justice and Cooperation, neither will the em- ployees and, more than that, they will go the employer one better on every violation. An employer must remember that it will take a num- fcer of years before all of his employees trust him, hulustri.il Democracy 209 and any straying on his parr from the straight and narrow path which has been laid out for the whole organisation will give great aid and comfort to the noisy "I told you so"s, who have a con- siderable influence in almost every factory group. Hut I think there are precious few employers who do not put the success of their work ahovi: themselves. Having only two backsliders our of twenty odd conversions should l.e a gratifying rate. However, I think ir is high; I think, that it- is at least the rate per hundred. I have said enough to show that Industrial Democracy is not a dangerous communistic ex- periment, that ir has no rufous streaks of Bul- shevikism and that it is an insurance of invested capital, not a speculation. I know that it is an insurance, because in several instances it has hem introduced while disorder threatened. It has pre- vented strikes which would seriously have affected the value of the investment and might eventually have brought ruin. I do not care to represent Industrial Democracy as a strike settler, because that might confuse its real merits and fetch ir into a class with nostrums and panaceas. Industrial Democracy is a level of thought and only inci- dentally a system. Ir stops strikes because it 210 Man to Man goes back of the strikes and reforms the numerous mutual errors of thought which generate the ill- will and cause the desire to strike. Industrial Democracy is a definite and profit- able plan of organization. It feeds men with 'constructive thought, gives them more reason for active service to the company, and makes them personally and collectively interested in reducing costs in shop, office, and sales. It pulls them out of hopelessness and builds up a spirit that brings cooperation and hence profit. Moses said: "Without a vision the people perish." He said that a long time ago, but it holds true today - The business without a vision will have no aim and hence no ginger. It is the part of the manage- ment to supply the aim; then the organization will put in the ginger. An organization is efficient in direct ratio to the clarity of its vision. In every shop and every office there lies buried under the dust of routine work, in the doubts of opportunity, in the lack of faith in the management, the dor- mant will to do a better and more profitable busi- ness. Every organization has these qualities and they can be brought out into the light and made to function. Industrial Democracy increases and develops Iiulustri.il Democracy -ii the control over the investment by causing every member of the organization to sec that every por- tion of the capita! is conserved and directed along the lines of more business and more profit. Is nor capital safer with labor not competing bur cooperating? Here is how the Printz-Bictkr- man Company answers the question: "Thus you can readily see, the people, under- standing the troubles and need of betterments, make and abide by their own laws, winch laws are of course subject to confirmation by the Cabinet. Contrast this method, if you please, with the old- fashioned method of arbitrary rule by arbitrary authority backed only by the power of discharge. "As much difference exists between the old and the new method of business conduct, as be- tween Anarchy and Democracy." Another employer says that Industrial Democ- racy has enabled him "to have a better and firmer control" over every portion of his business than he had ever before thought possible. Industrial Democracy, from the employer's standpoint, is but a development and c K>rdina- tion of existing labor systems. fake welfare work. The thought behind the right kind of welfare work is the creation of a physical and mental environ- 212 Man to Man ment that will develop the brain force of the worker that will cause him to think. A mass of thinking human beings will at once ask, and finally demand, not only a share in their political government but also in the ordering of their industrial lives. This progression is inevitable if the welfare work is clean, honest, and truly uplifting. In no case has there not been, as a sequence to welfare work, a demand for a greater share in the fruits of the business. Every one of the institutions which has led in bettering the physical and mental wel- fare of the workers has eventually granted higher wages, profit sharing, stock ownership, or all of them either by compulsion, in order to quiet labor troubles, or voluntarily by reason of the fairness of the executives. I have particularly in mind the United States Steel Corporation, the Ford Company, the National Cash Register Com- pany, and the Filene Store. The Filene Store is more advanced than any of the others and has already (I think inevitably) passed on to a kind of informal democracy and I take it that in every other institution distinguished for its humanity, the evolution will be similar. For to me Indus- trial Democracy is not a drastic revolution but an inevitable,* resistless evolutions. CHAPTER X KM PINC MIVF I III COMMIMIV SPIRIT ON K of tin- several objects of Industrial De- mocracy is to eliminate the necessitv for the close supervision of employees by abolishing "work- ing for" and putting in its place "working with." Thus the mimls of the executives as well as of the workers are freed from burdensome routine and enabled to express themselves in their fullness. That is what has always happened as the inci- dents which have been related bear witness. Hut it must not be imagined from this that Industrial Democracy is a kind of perpetual motion and that once started it w ill go on of itself forever. The underlying thought is the change in mental attitude by having all parties to the work cooper- ate toward the same end. 1 he machinery of democracy keeps alive the spirit of cooperation by us assurance of the universal squar-- deal; the ^ people can expre.-.s themselves m their forums they cannot complain that thev have wrongs without redress cr that thev have ideas to vhich 214 Man to Man none will pay attention. Having an opportunity ' for expression, their minds are open for ideals; they have founded their organization upon the ideals of Justice, Cooperation, Economy, Energy, and Service. They will want to carry these ideals into their work and here it is that the qualities of leadership on the part of the executives will find wonderful opportunities. It takes time to make ideals second nature; some of the men reach that point quickly, but the more suspicious (and there are as many suspicious employees as employers) will doubt for months and perhaps for years. It is to convert the doubt- ers and to stimulate the believers that some writ- ten evidence of what is going on should continually be in circulation. First, the full platform should be in the hands of every person connected with the establishment; it should be posted on every bulletin board; it should be so much about that no one can forget its existence. Second, the proceedings of the various bodies in so far as they can well be pub- lished should be given in abstract to the people. Let them know what is going on and especially tke decisions of moment to them; it is not well to publish the full minutes, because that tends to Indusiri.il Democracy 215 curtail discussion; but a general "newspaper ac- count" of the proceedings can In- distributed. thud, the messages from tin- management to the men should be given all possible publicity: they may be messages of any kind so long as they show the people what the company is doing and conse- quently make them feel that they are a part of the company in the fullest sense. Let them know something of sales and policies so that they cannot take the attitude that any part of the orgam/a- tion is without interest to them. Interest is founded upon knowledge. It helps a worker to know what a salesman is up against. I here are no high board fences separating the departments of a well-organized business. In short, it vitally helps toward a better common understanding and interest if there is a continual stream of communication among all parts of the orgam/.ation. From the nature of things this communication should be written as well as oral, in order that it may have an entire audience. The end is to beget mutual confidence, which is only another way of saying that it is necessary con- tinually to advertise Industrial Democracy to every member of the organization. Advertising has lorn; been recognized by Indus- 216 Man to Man trial leaders as a powerful means for quickly building good-will among their customers, but many have failed to realize that it can be used just as effectively for creating good-will among the men who make the products. Advertising for this purpose can take the fornv of printed bulletins, letters, house organs, pay envelope enclosures, or any other form that seems advantageous, and their issuance should at all times be under the supervision of the Cabinet. They should be couched in simple, direct language. They should be written as man to man. They should carry absolute sincerity in every line. They should show a real desire on the part of the owners and management to work with the humblest employees. They should carry a stimulating and contagious enthusiasm, but they should never be mere empty "ginger" words, and again, care should be taken that there be no "writing down" to the people or any other evidence that the man- agement considers itself mounted on a pedestal or occupying a pulpit. Part of this printed matter may be addressed to the Senate and the House of Representatives and part of it to the whole mass of employees. That addressed to the lawmaking bodies should Industrial Democracy 217 earn,' constructive suggestions for the working out of concrete problems. It should be such as will give the members of those bodies a broader outlook and assist them in rendering balanced judgments. Such matter as is addressed to the whole body of employees should be friendly, stimulating, and upbuilding. Whether it be in the form of letters, bulletins, house organs, or notes, it should carry an atmosphere of complete frankness. In these ' pieces of good-will advertising you can state ex- actly what your aims are, what you want to accomplish, and why. And if you really have as sincere a desire to build up your workers as to build up your business, they will soon become fully conscious of ir; and there is no question a to the response you will get. If you consider your workers merely from the standpoint of the dollars you can make out of their skill and muscle, they will think of nothing but rhe dollars they can get from you. They will return to you what you itr ihsm. Treat them as though they are antagonists and you will get antagonism all day long and overtime besides. Hut show them you believe in them and they will believe in you. Show them you have their interests ar heart and they will take an intsrtst in von. Show them that YOU 2i 8 Man to Man believe they have intelligence and fairness, ambi- tions and ideals, and you will find that they do have them. If the factory is a large one, the house organ may require an organization to handle, but the occasional copy is better done on a multigraph be- cause then it may be gotten out quickly without the delays of a printer and, in addition, there need be no fear that more or less intimate communications will reach the eyes of those for whom they were not t intended. A stale message is not worth much and often executives are deterred from saying what is in their minds because they know that by the time the words are printed they may not be pertinent. By the multigraph method you get immediate action, before the subject has grown cold putting the circulars, bulletins, or notes into the workers' hands on the same day the need arises if necessary within an hour or two. Mr. Charles M. Schwab has said that the two most powerful forces for accomplishment in the industrial world are rivalry and enthusiasm. And these forces can be put to work in any establish- ment. As I have previously stated in this book, high wages are not alone sufficient to keep men contented or, which is the same thing, to Industrial Democracy 219 them to pur their hearts into their jobs. We are all vain. \Ve all warn the approval, respect, ami prarse of our feilowmen. Therefore, it a woikei, a gang, or a department does something excep- tional, give the teat all publicity. (Jive a perfectly natural ami wholesome vanity some thin:!; to feed on. Nothing is more stimulating. Nothing i-> better calculated to bung our hidden capabilities in men and women who have previously gone along in a twilight ot hopeless drudging. When a department \sins the tlag for the period, print the names of the people in that department and tell how and why they effected their econo- mies. If a dividend is above the average, explain how it came about and, if it is below the aveiage, then likewise give the facts with some suggestions as to how another low dividend can be prevented. 'I he whole factory is always the better for know ing just what it is doing. I do not stress quantity production; I think that quantity is wholly sec- ondary to quality and that when quality is the first consideration quantity will tlow of itself. But publish the quantity records, too, it quantity be needed. The big thing is to keer> work, tlic spirit akin to the old 22O Man to Man working together to produce the best product of its kind at trie price. And, in order to accom- plish this, the power of the written word must not be neglected CHAPTER XI PITMM; IAIIOR uruiM) AMI RICA IHAYK touched but lightly upon that phase of Industrial Democracy which is really the most important its function in helping to make Anu-nca a nation. A nation is something more than a ^eo^raphical division; it is a spiritual unity of individuals. A mere joining at the top does not make a nation. Russia was joined only at the top; its various dis- cordant elements were held together only by force and the moment that the grip loosened the separate nationalities wmt their several ways. There is a similar situation in the Dual Kmpire. Through hundreds of years the various national- ities therr have- not assimilated, they have no common aim, and no common spirit. A C'zecho- Slovak hates an Austrian more bitterly than a Frenchman hates a German. Here in America we have not had to contend with distinct nations preserving their national entities within our borders. \\ e have stretches 222 Man to Man of country particularly in the West where most of the inhabitants belong to a particular nation- ality and preserve in a degree the fatherland language and customs. We have had districts ii\ which English-speaking schools failed for want of attendance; but in no case have we had to deal with alien inhabitants on a purely geographical basis. Our alien minded are scattered through the whole country joining in small groups here and there (small that is, when considered in re- lation to the total population) and as political units they are negligible. Our problem is not one of definite, sectional alienism, nor even of making the American spirit predominate. For, when put to the choice between loyalty and dis- loyalty, loyalty always wins. But a subtle, al- though very real, difference exists between actual disloyalty and a failure to grasp the spirit of America. Disloyalty is a defiance and may be dealt with by law, but no law can be framed to create a common Americanism, a knowledge of American ideals, and a wholesome, whole-hearted interest in their extension. We cannot touch spiritual matters by law, we can only enforce a lip service, and lip service will not cause a man in any emer- Industrial Democracy 223 gency to tlunJjjJjjH that he js an American arid only secondly that he is an individual Yet that is precisely the spirit that we must have in order to attain a trulv united America. We have not that united America today; we have an encouragingly large number of true na- tionals, but also we have a dangerously largr num- ber of half-baked nationals and a big class of splut- tering, phrase-loving, wholly unworthy, inter- nationals -men who are proud to be without a country. They are not confined to any one class or to any one particular social order. 1*1 ie em- ployer who profiteers in war time is nor a whir better and probably he is worse than the work- man who profiteers by striking in the midst of the manufacture of vital munitions. \Ve have found that we have such employers and such employees. We have erred in directing all of our efforts at Americanization towards the employees, simply because there happen to be more of rhem than there are employers. I know of one employer on the East Side in New York who discharged a worker for taking time oft to become naturalized! Un-Amencanism is not confined to any class; you will find it among the rich and among the poor. It may take the form of lukewarm loyalty. 224 Man to Man or again it may be a professed loyalty to the coun- try as such, but with a positive disregard of the ideals that dominate its foundation. Forcing employees to vote for certain measures and can- didates is spiritually quite as disloyal as cursing the country. What is the difference between jumping on the American flag in public and flouting our Bill of Rights by forcing a kind of servitude upon workers? There is a legal and circumstantial difference, of course, but is there any particular difference in degree of Un-Ameri- canism? We have little to guide us in the future. We do not know whether after this war we shall be able to recognize the world that we are living in. Some social changes will undoubtedly come about; they may be drastic or they may be gradual; more probably they will be gradual. But one thing is certain. The prosperity of any country will depend upon its ability to make and to sell with the highest possible efficiency. Of course that has been the rule in the past, but we in America have not felt it so keenly because we have not been a world-competitive manufacturing nation and our natural resources were so great that we could waste a deal of them and still have enough Industrial Democracy 225 lo sc!l and live on. \S e arc now a manufacturing nation the greatest in tin- world. <>iir factories have been so extended that I think working full tune we could supply all flu- nerds of our people with six months of operation. Bur we cannot work only half tin- vear and continue prosperous. \\ e must hnd some way to take up twelve months of efficient production that is, we must find new markets for our products and those markers will have to he without our own holders. In other words, to imd an outlet for the full yearly produc- tion, we shall have to he prepared to make and to sell more efficiently than other nations. \Ve shall not breed a national spirit without national prosperity; the one begets the other. If we have a real national spirit we shall have a fundamental prosperity; if we have a fundamental prosperity we shall have a real national spirit. Perhaps this is utilitarian reasoning, but there is a utilitarian background for most ot our ideals. It is very difficult, although not impossible, for a wife to love a husband who will not support her. It is even more difficult for children to pay homage to parents who think that their whole duty lias been performed when they have brought the children into the world. Therefore, I think that 226 Man to Man Americanism is a reciprocal relation; it is a give- and-take proposition. The quickest educator in the American spirit is the practical realization that following American ideals produces both material happiness and prosperity. I have tried to show in the preceding page? that Industrial Democracy has produced a very large degree of material happiness and prosperity in the institutions where it is in force. The people have come to regard the factory in which they work as their factory and here is the re- markable further development they have gone beyond the factory in their awakened spirit and found a new interest in the country in which they live. In the average factory the man who does not speak English finds that deficiency of compara- tively little moment because notices and orders are given to him in his own language. If he learns English it is because he needs it outside the factory. But in every case of Industrial Democ- racy one of the earliest enactments of the Senate and House is always a rule that notices and orders shall be only in the English language. They pro- ceed to force a knowledge of English it becomes an essential. Here is a typical speech with its liuiustri.il Democracy 227 English unreviscd. It happened to have bern made in the Senate of a textile plant; I could ckp others of similar import from almost air, of the installations: This brings up something that occurred in mv department through lack of understanding th English language I had one man who t.i!L constiuct bfo.idel character as individuals and broader coninu'ic- as an ir.stirut; >n. \\ e recogi % .i/e that justice to i l.is nece\si;a:es taking advantage of every opp^i ni::i; \ t > do the be^t that is in us, and each da\ unpnne that i,:' ability. 234 Appendix We realize that merit must be recognized whether in ability or merchandise. With this certainty we cheerfully, hopefully and courageously press forward to certain and unqualified success. The second Corner-stone of Our Policy is CO-OPERATION To accomplish the greatest possible results as indi- viduals and as an institution we find Co-operation a necessity. We recognize that business without Co-operation is like sound without harmony. Therefore we determine and agree to pull together and freely offer, and work with, the spirit of that principle CO-OPERATION. So we shall grow in character and ability and develop individual and Commercial Supremacy. Differences of opinion shall be freely and fearlessly expressed, but we shall at all times stand ready to CO- OPERATE with and heartily support the final judg- ment in all matters. The third Corner-stone of Our Policy is ECONOMY As each moment is a full unit in each hour and each hour a full unit in each day, so each well spent unit of thought and well spent unit of action makes for each victory and the final success. When the hour, the day, the year or the life is filled Appendix Tvith \\rll spent ability, ami an irutitution is of individuals who recogni/c the value of and v> uc thc-ir tiinr, then success is controlled and governed urn! there is no longer that vague uncertainty or a blind ami unreasoning hope. Life is like a bag in which, each moment, we place a unit of value or of rubbish, ami our prevent and future happiness depends upon the content* of that bag. Recognizing that ECONOMY is time, material ami energy well spent, we determine to make the !>esr use of them, and so shall time, material and energy bo < am- our servants while we become the. masters of our dest in v. 'I he fourth Corner-stone of Our Policy is 1 M IU.Y As Energy is the p -.vcr back o! action, and action is necessary to produce results, we determine to IAI.R- (il/.K our minds and hands, concentrating all our powers upon the most important work In-fore us. I bus intensifying our mental ami physical .U'IYIP, , we shall "Make two grow where one \as," well know- ing that our Individual and Commercial Crop (> t Re- sults will yield in just proportion to our productive ami persistent activity. 1 his power ot Lncrgy directed exclusively toward sound and vigorous construction leaves n-> loom for destruction and reduces all torir.s .t u stance. 236 Appendix Having set in our Business Policy the four Corner- stones of JUSTICE, CO-OPERATION, ECONOMY and ENERGY, we are convinced that the super- structure must be SERVICE We believe that the only sure and sound construction of success as an individual or an institution depends upon the quality and quantity of SERVICE rendered. We neither anticipate nor hope to be unusually fa- vored by fortune, but are thoroughly persuaded that fortune favors the performer of worthy deeds and of unusual service, and we therefore determine that our days and our years be occupied with such performance. Quality shall always be the first element of our SERVICE and quantity shall ever be the second consideration. Thus shall we establish not only the reputation but the character of serving best and serving most. Therefore, by serving admirably, we shall deserve and receive proportionately. APPENDIX TWO RiiFs (JoviRMNc. l.Mn.ovn s* (,KM MM. Iii welcoming you as one of us -as a newcom'-r in the PRINT/KSS f.imi!v -we hand you thu l..,-,k!-f. not so much as a book <>l rules to govern \niir c< :i iuct, hut as a word of greeting -a means t tell \.u .1 little more ahout us, that you may know wh.it we h.ivt- thus far cloiu- for ourselves ami that you may hetrer mulrr- staiul what we are trying to do ami so i;i\c us \oiir help to reach our goal. \\ e can only accomplish something \vhen \M- .1!! work in harmony, in a true co-operative spirit. 1 iu K - fore, we must learn to recogm/e the discipline <>t this factory as something that serves t guule us .nul help us by laying down the same rules tr .ill. 1 rv and help this discipline by observing these rule-;. Read the book carefully, and if then- is anything that you do not understand, ask. the head <>t vur de- partment or the S >cial Secretary who will be glad to give you further information. cil for their own ^uiJjrKc l>v rhc employed of the l't;ntt BicJcrmjn Co. 238 Appendix We hope that your stay with us will be permanent and a pleasant and most profitable one. We, the employees of The Printz Biederman Com- pany, acting with the Cabinet, which consists of the officers of the firm, have adopted these four principles as the corner-stones of this business, and in welcoming you as one of us, ask that you, too, subscribe to them and observe them faithfully: JUSTICE CO-OPERATION ECONOMY ENERGY By so doing, you will be furthering your own interest and the interests of all the rest of us. RULES GOVERNING EMPLOYEES Applications and Commencing Work: When you first report for work, the Superintendent, or his assis- tant, will introduce you to your supervisor, who will assign to you your place and your work. You will later call on the head of our social service work, who is also in charge of the hospital room, the purpose of which interview will be to explain to you the object of that department and the work it is carrying on. Your application card will contain your address, and any change in address that you may make after commenc- ing work is to be immediately reported, without fail> Appendix JV; to your foreman, so that hr may 1:1 turn rrp<>rr it to the Pa\ roll Depart inrnr. // :.-v.': ':.' Your working h urs will l><- frmn 7:1 ; to 1 1 ;o \. M . a-i ! t't .-n i ; i ; r , } ; I' M , excrpt Saturday, when tin- -.Mirkm.; hour, -.vill in i'r.-m 7:1; A. M. to ! l ; ) \. M . ni.tk:'^ .1 t'lt.il .i[" .p IMUCS prr week. 1 IH-SI- hours ;''>\rr:i .ill tlcpjrtnirnrs r\itpt other departments, \\hosr worLni^ h >\n\ .K t'rotn ":4i A. M., until ii:;o A. M., an>l h'>;n I : ; ) to 5:^0 I'. M. Hours on Satur\iav tiorn 7:4; A. M. to i: >j M. You will not IK- rr^mrvil to \vork oji S.irur.l.iv aftrrn:i >r on Sunday cxcrpt in t-riHT^cru'v. It is not t!u- in- tention to a:>L anyone to work overtime, bur %'iouM if ever he necessary to do this, the overtime w-iik. v. ill In- paid tor at the rate of time and a half for length of overtime put in. An ( ). K. lor this overtime wotk ->i!l have to he turned m hy the t"reman <>t your depart- ment to the Payroll Department so th.i r u, n tur:i, can credit you with correct amount ot overtime. Timf Rtcorcting:\uii wi\\ he assigned a tune card on which to register y"ir time of gom^ to and c mini; from work. 1 he payroll ottice %\ill collect t!ie <..ir>ls every Wednesday for the purpose of making out your pay. I he Payroll Department requites two djvs to figure up the pay ot the many employees, so that the pay you receive on Saturday will represent what you have earned up to \\ednesdav mi;ht. Lutene%s \\ill be deducted for, as will aiv> ahsence. 240 Appendix Holidays: The following legal holidays will be ob- served throughout the plant and will be paid for just as if you were at work: New Year's Day, Decoration Day, Fourth of July, Labor Day, Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Day, and PRINTZESS Day. Advancements: Your advancement, and pay, in every way will depend entirely on the quality of work you do, the way you apply yourself to your work, and your attendance. The practice of loitering is to be avoided at all times. Do not visit in other departments. Tools and Their Care: Workers on sewing machines are not required to provide any tools needed except a pair of scissors or shears. There is a deposit required for machine foot, shuttle and bobbin, which deposit is refunded on surrender of these parts. Cutters re- quire a large pair of shears, yardstick and draw knife. All power and electrical equipment and the machines and tools needed in your work, except the above, will be furnished you free of charge and will be maintained by the firm in proper working condition. Competent machinists and repair men are employed for that pur- pose, and whenever your machine or tools get out of adjustment, you need only notify the superintendent, or your foreman or forewoman, who will instruct the machinist to make the repairs without delay. Care in Handling Materials: The material used in the factory being of a nature that is easily injured, you Appendix .341 must he c.irrful in the use of oil on your machine* and refrain from bringing any eatables to thr work, n-.ni, or to cut anywhere throughout thr pLnr <>rhrr than in the dining room provulni lir the- purposr. llouif rurthiitfs: You have thr ri^ht to p-irchatr garments at regular wholesale prur for \<>ur wife, mother, .sister, or daughter, if living inulrr the- s.unr roof. Before making such pun lust %oii \vill obtain an order from the head of the planning department, or in his absence, from the head of the sto.L department, and this order, when presented to the nun in charge of the surplus stock, will authori/e him to \%.i:r >ri \ou. 'I o save your time these purchases must he m.u!r i!i;r- ing the noon hour. ^ our purchase \\ill he p.n krd up and a slip will he mven to you hy means ot w!mh \\i can ohtain your package on the hrst t1.*..r from t!u- floorman when leaving at night. Sucli s.ilrs are for Cash only. Purchases ol raw materials, such as lining, cloth, etc., can he made in a similar manner on appli- cation to either of the above-named department heads for n purchase order, or on application |.>r s;uh an order to the head of the purchasing department. v.ho will direct you to head of puce poods and trimming department, who \\ill wait on you. Circulation of .S'ui/rr; *;::; c. .: I he circulation of subscription lists for any purpose is discouraged. The circulation of subscription to raffles, m\ est merits or Speculations of any nature is absolutely prohibited. 242 Appendix Fire Precautions: For reasons of personal safety and in accordance with orders from the Fire Marshal's office, no smoking can be allowed in or about the work room. The fire drill, which will be signaled by gong on each floor, is for the prevention of panic, and the instructions given by the fire drill lieutenants on your floor must be rigidly followed in all such drills. Telephone: Personal messages over the telephone during working hours are prohibited except in cases of urgent necessity. Public Discussion: Such information as comes to you in the course of your work is of interest to only yourself and your fellow-workers and, therefore, is of a more or less confidential nature. It is expected that you will refrain from discussing publicly outside of the factory anything pertaining to the factory, and thus keep from violating the confidence placed with you. Applicants' Waiting List: We often find it neces- sary to make additions to the force of employees, and applications are always welcome from favorable work- men or women. If you have any friend that you think might want a position here, direct them to our employ- ment department, even though they may at the present time be employed, and they will be put on a waiting list, and will be advised at the first opportunity of an opening. Example and Good Fellowship: Make every effort to set the right kind of example in courtesy, energy, Append!* 243 enthusiasm, and chrrrfuinr t tho-,r around v>u, cspev -Lilly to Hew employers. A'.'.isf fhrni in every wa\ th.it you can an.urring thru <| H-,?: nv. and nuL- ing them feel ar ease. 1 M the ciu! t haf .1 spirit <.f ; H, i fellowship may prevail throughout the f.uT.>ry at ji! tunes, a Print/ess Ciotxl fellowship League !-.u l-rrn fonncJ. I ho purpose of tins lej^ue !. f-> e:: >ur^^<- a.'>ju.uutaiice aiul friendship with ;..>ur fellow-workers. AN a I'rnit/.ess employee, you arc a me:n!><-r of tliis Economy: A ^reat deal of needless expense is i;u ur- red hy the allowing of t;.is and eleerriv- li^hrs to hum when they are no longer needed. Hrlp to econ-imi/'- hy turnmj; out th.ese lm!its when they are no 1 >n^r; necessary. Aside Ironi the saving itsc't, ecotMi:u i:: one's own make-up is a tiling to he cultivated. I .imps must not he removed from hxtures \irpt hy tin- i !..:-.- ers or machinists. Lconomy in the UM- <>t lend pc:'.c:!s, papt-r. etc.. is also a matter that is p. >r usually i^ven the attention it deserves. Kconomtzc so t.ir .l^ p >s in the matter of stati-n'.erN'. supplies, etc. I conmry in the use of raw materials is also a thing to he desired and any suggestions that you offer alone; these lines are especially entitled to reward. lnlfrdff>arimtr.i C >:?: ;<::' \::\f>. : -All CvMnmunica- tions Ix-twevn departments must he put ir.t > the out- going baskets supplied tor that purpose. a;:d will he collected hy the house nieiienger ai^.d dii'nhutcd trom 244 Appendix one department to the other. Rush communications, however, should be sent by special messenger. Visits from Friends: Do not have your friends visit you during business hours except on urgent matters, in which case they will leave their name with the floor- man on the first floor, who will in turn send it to the head of the department in which the person desired is working. Publicity: In order that everybody may be kept informed of whatever of factory interest there may be going on, there is on every floor, near the elevator, a bulletin board on which is posted, periodically, matters of general interest. Everyone is requested to make reference to this board from time to time, as this is your way of keeping yourself informed on the various matters about which you should know. Occasionally, also, special subjects will be brought to your attention by means of slips inserted in your pay envelope. Suggestions: If you have anything to suggest in the way of improvement in the methods of work, or that will add to the comfort and benefit of your fellow- workers, or that will correct any improper existing condition, give us the benefit of your thoughts. You will find a suggestion box on every floor, near the ele- vator, and blanks on which to write your suggestion. The Suggestion Committee will give your suggestion careful consideration and if it is considered as having merit, you will receive a suitable money prize as a Appendix 245 reward for your efforts. The signing of your name to the suggestion is encouraged, although not iniiited on. Self C'lffrnment: Our Senate and House of Rep- resentatives meet each week for the consideration of such matters as have to do with the betterment of con- ditions in ami about the plant and our well-hring. If you know of any matter that you think requires atten- tion, bring it to the attention of your representative or your foreman, that it may be properly brought up before the House of Representatives or Senate .it the. time of meeting. 'I he- Senate meets on Wednesday mornings at 10:00 o'clock, and the louse of Repre- sentatives meets on Fuesday morning at 10:00 o\!r your particular department, and present matters of interest to the House of Representatives through him. 1 here is, also, a Betterment Committee to whom grievances r complaints of any kind should be made. ^ our repre- sentative can tell you the names of tin- members of this committee. Soda! .SVrfr.'jry: Our social service head, who is experienced in work of this nature, can be found in the hospital room office at all times from the hour o! ^.XD to i :oo, except on Thursday, on \\hich da\ she is there from 10:00 to 1:50 only. Suggestions that particularly apply to the social work \\ill be welcomed by her and she \\ill be glad at alltiir.es t. !e of service to anyone 246 Appendix seeking advice. You may obtain from the social service head, for purpose of vacations, a list of desir- able country boarding houses with location and terms. Dining Room: A commodious dining room with ample seating capacity for all is provided. You will be assigned a permanent place where you can leave your lunch when you arrive in the morning. The dining room is also provided with a double cafeteria, on the serve-self system, where you can obtain milk, hot coffee, tea, etc., and if you do not bring your lunch, you can obtain wholesome, well-cooked hot meals, as well as sandwiches, fruit, pastry, etc. The schedule of prices is on a cost basis. In order to lessen the amount of work for the dining room care-takers, please carry your tray and used dishes to the kitchen window ledge when through eating. Washrooms, etc.: Ample washroom and toilet fa- cilities are provided for all floors, and should at all times be kept in clean and sanitary condition. It is expected that all employees are interested enough in conditions around the factory to help keep them so. Any untidiness or disorder should be promptly reported to the head of the social service work. Hospital Room: It is the aim to have everything about the factory tend toward the best possible con- dition of health for employees. To that end a hospital room has been established for cases of illness or indis- position. In such cases, please report to your super Appendix .247 vuor or foreman and thru go to the hospital room where thr head of the social srr\t>r work, who \\ a trained nurse, is 1:1 charge. Any rnrdical aid that ihc can render, you \\ill nvnvc frt-r f>f charge. /?^/f /?oom/: Adjoining thr timing r 1*1:11, y<>u will lirul a room provided with chairs, S>L (S( periodicals, nuga/mes, etc. Ilu-rv is alsn ;i pun<> for your jnuisr- ment .nul recreation. 1 his is to I*- pljycil onlv ilurir ^ the mxw h)iir betwcx-n 1 1 :;o ami I : : ; ; jiul to IK- In kc.l jt all other times. There is rx> smoking allowed in this rest r::e locker. It is expected ttiat you will leave r. > ii:M or papers in the locker, as proper rivepracles arc pro- vided in and about the locki-r room tor MIC!: ariilr-.. A deposit of 25 cents is requited to insure sa!c return of the key. Librar,: A free circulating library, branch of the Cleveland Library, is maintained in the social "service department office where l<>ks may !>< obtained ui.vl exchanged during the noon hour. I !ic hbunan VM!! also obtain for you from the main hbruiv ar.v KXJ'K 248 Appendix that you may desire that is not already in our li- brary. Aprons: Female employees may purchase, at cost, if they wish, large aprons for use in their work and so save wear and tear on their clothing. Aprons are to be obtained at the social service department room on the fifth floor, at noon on Mondays and Thursdays, and will be laundered each week without expense to you. Towels: On Mondays and Thursdays individual towels will be distributed in the basement. A de- posit of 15 cents is required for your towel. This towel may be exchanged for a fresh one without cost twice a week, at noon, on the above days. When finally surrendering your towel your deposit will be returned. Umbrellas: Umbrellas can be borrowed on rainy days, on application to the social service head. These must be returned the following day or their cost will be deducted from your envelope on the following pay- day. Lost and Found: Any articles lost or found should be reported to the head of the social service depart- ment, who will take what steps she can to find the lost article or to locate the owner of a found article by means of the bulletin board, etc. Report such articles im- mediately, as delay might tend to counteract this de- partment's efforts. Appendix 24> Knforcfmfnt of ,4b>?f Rul/s: It is rcqucitcd that any onr noticing thr violation <>t any >( thc\c ruin rrjxirt N.IIIIC to flic hr.iti <>f the lirpjrtrnrni uitrrrttrd. Repeated violation <>| rules >n thr purt <>f uny >tir will mur his or her record aiul act :i^.nnut advancement. THE LND DATE DUE GAYLORD