The political verdict of May 5 was of itself not a | great economic gain to the enemies of Labor. All that | it did was to give to the plutocracy control of | Parliament. That was certainly a decided gain. But | Parliament is not everything.
|Immediately the election campaign was over we wrote | these words:~~
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And having stated that fundamental truth we went on | to say:~~
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It is the plutocratic prosecution of that deadly | purpose that has convulsed the social life of the | Commonwealth. All the promises that no stone would be | removed from the temple of labor are thrown to the | wind. The Government of Australia has set itself the | task of organising strike-breakers so that Unionism | might be destroyed.
|Let us not forget that Hughes and Pearce designed | the thumb-print last October, and that to-day they are | actively fashioning associations of blacklegs. For the | first time in its history the machinery of the nation | has been employed to manufacture scabs.
|But the bread-burglars have overreached themselves. | They did not believe that unionism was the greatest of | the economic forces. They forgot that in recent years | powerful consolidating movements had been in process | and that Unionism was becoming linked together in an | unbreakable chain.
|Thus when they presented their ultimatum the | challenge was accepted. And the circumstances were | favorable to the union-smashers. They argued the | terrible effects of the war would inflame the public | mind; that Press misrepresentation could be relied on | to do its pestilential work. And they believed that | disunity would speedily manifest itself in the | working-class ranks.
| And no risks were taken. Their challenge was
| preceded by bombardment of sacking. From every place
| of public employment men had been driven in droves. In
| all the big cities unemployment was pushing its way and
| the haters of Unionism believed that a strike would
| give them a chance to draw on the thousands who
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It has not happened. Unionism has stood | magnificently solid. The Universities have been | combed, country towns thinned out, and all sorts of men | laid hold of, to act as strike-breakers. The whole | machinery of the Commonwealth Government, and the | Governments of three States, has been functioning to | break the strike. And they have not done it.
|Elsewhere we give an outline of the Taylor card | system against which the Sydney men are fighting. It | is one of the most infamous expedients found in | industry.
|Taylor was once a toiler himself. He had been a | mechanic, but depression made him glad to accept work | as a laborer. He states that he had an advantage over | his fellow workers, in that he had not come of | working-class parents. This enabled him to pimp on them | successfully, as when it came to an argument between | himself and his fellow employees, this was the deciding | factor in causing his representations to be accepted | contrary to the weight of evidence.
|From laboring, he got the position of a clerk who | had been stealing, and later as a machinist was put in | charge of a lathe. Because he did more work than the | rest, after a few months he was made gang boss.
|Here he began a speeding-up campaign, and says had | he lived in the quarter where the workmen lived, he | would have been called "scab" every time he appeared in | the street, and his family abused and ostracised.
|There is no reason why he should not be called a | scab now, even if we are not in the position to secure | that he shall be ostracised. From this small | beginning, the scab evolved a style of speeding-up that | is nothing short of damnable.
|As the speeding-up campaign continued, and Taylor | found men of his own kidney, the machines produced | more, and Taylor steadily won promotion from gang boss | to gang boss, till he became shop foreman. How many | lives were shortened for this result is not stated.
|His success as a sweater gave Taylor a bit of inside | running. On this alone, he says the president of the | Midvale Steel Company, William Sellers, consented to | the spending of money upon a careful, scientific | investigation of the amount of labor that a man could | accomplish, with the view of insisting that the answer | to this problem should constitute the task. Sellers | was pessimistic as to results.
|The first list of experiments failed to produce a | law. There was found to be no relation between the | foot pounds or energy a man exerted during the day and | the tiring effect of his work. The records were kept, | however, as a mark for others to reach when doing | similar toil. A second and third investigation were | made later, with gaps of years between each.
|The accumulated data was handed to Carl G Barth, a | mathematician. He discovered the law. For each given | pull or push on the man's arms, it is possible for the | workman to be under load for only a definite percentage | of the day.
|In the case of pig iron, each pig weighing 92 lbs, a | first-class workman could only be under load 43 per | cent of the day. He must be entirely free from load | during 57 per cent of the day. With half-pigs, he may | be under load 58 per cent of the day, and free only 42 | per cent.
|The Bethlehem Steel Company had a lot of pig iron in | the yard, unmarketable till the Spanish-American War | raised the price. Then it was decided to load it. | Each man was trucking on an average 12.5 tons of ore. | But under Bath's mathematics, it was discovered that in | 43 per cent of the day no less than 47.5 tons per man | should be loaded.
|Taylor got to work. He studied the psychology of | the men. This is what he says:~~
|And it is here where we get to grips with the | menace. Taylor has each man working to an unknown | task. All day and every day there is the frenzied | competition of each worker with the unknown | assessment.
|It gives birth to an atmosphere in which fraternity | cannot live. Each day comes the sack for some, and no | man knoweth when he shall be turned adrift. It is | scientific sweating. It does in August, 1917, for the | plutocrats what the whips did for the slave-drivers in | the barbarous ages.
|And men are not going to indulge in a frenzy of | sweat to enable the profit-graspers wax ever richer. | For ourselves we defiantly deny the claim that man | shall work his life away.
|If there is not enough production to meet the needs | of the race, let us re-arrange our social system. But | Moloch wants an earth where he can lash the toilers in | a never-ceasing grind.
|That Unionism has determined to resist the curse is | not strange. Its introduction would spread like a | cancer in the body of Unionism. A few months would | bring about that industrial disintegration of Labor | which would complete the political triumph the | profiteers have already registered.
|The jails have opened wide their doors to assist the | task of intimidation and coercion. Proclamations pour | out threateningly, and each day politicians and | newspapers carry on the propaganda of the bully. We | are not fearful.
|That policy is the last stroke of desperation. The | Unions are winning out. Not only will the card system | disappear, but the cost of living will fall. Another | week will demonstrate the failure of the blow directed | against Unionism so that the plutocracy might rule for | a generation.
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