Taylorism

TAYLORISM. - Scientific organization of labor, which arose in America at the end of the 19th century through the work of F. W. Taylor.

In the author's original conception, the main purpose of the new system should be to ensure rare, through the transformation of the working and managerial methods of the firm, the maximum of prosperity for employers and workers; in this way the antagonism between the former and the latter would automatically cease, because both would find the satisfaction of their fundamental interests, constituted for employers by low production costs and for workers by high wages. Taylor starts from the principle that the maximum of prosperity can be achieved only by maximizing production. In fact, one who manages to produce four compared with another who under the same conditions manages to produce two can pay his employees better, sell the goods at a lower price and dispose of an overall higher margin of profit. From this derives the necessity of combating every kind of underwork, which may be due to causes of a technical nature and to psychophysical or psychic factors (poorly chosen means of work, lack or deficiency of the requisite work aptitudes, natural laziness, inadequate or superfluous movements, etc.).

The measures to be implemented are: rational choice of the means of work, selection and instruction of personnel with new systems, assistance to the worker during the execution of his work, supervision of the worker with the stopwatch, increase of wages in proportion to the work performed.

This presupposes, among other things, a radical change in the concepts inspiring the managerial function of a firm. Two types of managers are needed: those who study how to improve production quantitatively and qualitatively, and those who supervise the execution of the work within the established time.

With the new science, destined to replace the old empiricism in human labor, new relations would come to be established between the management of the firm and the workers; the worker, instructed scientifically in his task, would feel bound to those who have elaborated the work plan and to the others who have instructed him; the management would find itself actively cooperating with the employees and sharing with them work and responsibility. As regards wages, Taylor establishes that, when the worker performs his work within the established time, he is entitled to a supplement that may vary, according to the case, from thirty to one hundred percent of the base wage; a bonus is also due to the foremen, in proportion to the number of workers under their control who complete their task within the assigned time; this would serve as a spur to instruct the less able workers, who could be brought, little by little, to the level of the more able ones.

Many criticisms have been leveled at t. It has been observed first of all that the new system confers on work an exhausting stamp of aridity; by abolishing every kind of private initiative and prescribing gestures identical for all it makes workers similar to machines. To this the supporters of the system have countered that the scientific organization of work favors initiatives more than the old system, which indeed are encouraged and accepted if recognized as useful for the improvement of the firm. Moreover, a worker instructed with a rational technical training to make the best use of his aptitudes and who works with well-designed machines, in rationally organized workshops, can perfect his abilities to the point of reaching managerial positions. Finally, the efficiency of a worker is not determined solely by the repetition of invariably identical movements, but also by alertness and by knowing how to remain always present to oneself. It has also been lamented that, as a result of the selection that favors the best elements, too many average elements, though suitable for profitable work, would be wrongly discarded by the new organization of work. But, it is answered, this should not happen, because the increase in production entails the growth of business and the demand for more numerous manpower: then hirings would necessarily have to fall also on elements of average value. Another objection is that the increase in production, more easily than with the old systems, opens the way to unemployment. But even if it became necessary to contain production, the advantage would remain for the worker of earning more or of receiving the same wage while working for a shorter time. The torture of timekeeping, an instrument of exploitation of the worker, has also been reproached to t. But this, while representing a means used by the scientific organization of work, would not characterize the system. On the other hand, science is based on the study of the nature of phenomena, and when one intends to study human labor one cannot do without recording the time taken to perform it. It has furthermore been objected that double work should correspond to double wages, which does not occur with t. However, the necessity has been pointed out of also taking into account the mass of consumers, who ultimately pay both the worker's wage and the entrepreneur's profits.

Still other objections are raised against t., but Taylor has insisted on the fact that it is not this or that aspect, nor the system as a whole, that characterizes the scientific organization of work, but the spiritual revolution of the working personnel, which acquires new rights and assumes new obligations, and the change of mentality of the managerial bodies.

The t., already immediately after the elaboration carried out by Gilbreth, Barth, Thompson, began to be opposed by the workers' organizations themselves, which saw in it the threat, rather than the protection, of their interests. Only after the war, which ended in 1918, was the movement able to spread in Europe, especially in the nations more advanced in industrial organization, undergoing there modifications in relation to the needs and the psychology of the individual countries.

Eleuterio Boganelli