MEASURING THE WORKER

The Time Study: Boon or Bane?

EVEN in the current era of labor peace, one big troublemaker still shows up all too often in U.S. industrial relations. That troublemaker is the time study, the system by which the operation of a certain job is clocked to determine how long it should take to do it. A time study man with a ticking stopwatch can show up on a factory floor and in an hour bring a giant production process to a halt; an argument over time studies is one of the biggest causes of the five-month-old strike at Westinghouse (TIME, Oct. 24 et seq.). Of the 3,399 grievance cases the American Arbitration Association handled last year, 23% were caused by disputes over job standards, wage incentives and time studies. In the past six years "more than 25% of all man-hours lost from work stoppage were directly caused by arguments about measuring a worker's performance.

In the case histories of labormanagement relations, the time study has run up a long record for making trouble. The practice of clocking a worker began in the 1880s with Frederick Winslow Taylor, the father of scientific management, about the same time that Samuel Gompers founded the American Federation of Labor.

But the ideas of Taylor (who died while winding his watch) clashed head-on with the young labor movement, which in 1913 persuaded Congress to outlaw time studies in Government-owned plants.

Through war and depression unions looked on the time study men with cold suspicion, believed them to be company spies trying to force the "speedup" (requiring a worker to produce more to earn the same pay) or the "stretchout" (putting a worker in charge of more machines). More often than not the "expert" lacked both technical training and knowledge of the job he judged, and even today some companies ask for trouble by using untrained white-collar workers to make time studies. Not until World War II did unions take the first steps toward cooperation with management on the problem; even then they agreed to go along only as a preliminary to higher wages by incentive payments.

Most unions still believe that the time study is management's business, and they will take no part in it. Said one steelworkers' executive:"They can go ahead and make the study, but we don't have to accept the findings." The steelworkers prefer to let the company set job standards, then file grievances if they do not like them.

But many labor leaders are beginning to agree that they can not only live with time studies but profit from them. At one Chrysler assembly plant, for example, time study men watched a worker assemble a rear-view mirror and bracket at a work bench with a hand screwdriver. They replaced this method with an air-operated screwdriver and a fixture to hold bracket and mirror, thus free the worker's hands. Result: production tripled, Chrysler saved $9,000 yearly, and the worker raised his incentive pay while reducing his physical labor.

Some unions play an active role in management's time studies. Sperry Gyroscope was one of the first to hand the whole problem over to a joint labor-management committee. One of the best examples of close labor-management cooperation is the clothing industry, where the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union has long had its experts working with clothing makers to set piece rates. When it runs into a manufacturer who claims he cannot afford to pay the union's wage scale, the I.L.G.W.U. calls in William Gomberg, director of management engineering, who can often show a company how it can cut costs without cutting wage rates.

The U.A.W. has also set up a well-oiled working arrangement with General Motors and Ford. In the complex, highly automated auto industry, new machinery, new methods and new models force automakers into constant time studies, constant revisions of job standards. But there is little friction because G.M. and Ford agree wholeheartedly with the U.A.W. that time study is not an exact science, but a starting point for bargaining about base pay and incentives.

Such cooperation is the best evidence that the time study creates few problems if the company uses competent technicians who carefully and repeatedly explain what they are doing, and include in any job evaluation such human factors as fatigue and boredom. An atmosphere of good labor relations is also a big help; although the International Union of Electrical Workers refused to permit Westinghouse's time study, it raised no objection to a similar study at G.E. Where a union suspects that the time study is being used by management to cut pay or fire workers, the stopwatch will always make trouble. But properly used, the time study is a tool that can not only cut costs and hike production, but boost both workers' wages and company profits.

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