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Now, when these two jobs start on this basis under the Towne-Halsey plan and are ultimately done in one hour each, Smart receives for his job 20 cents per hour + a premium of 20 cents = a total of 40 cents. Honest receives for his job 20 cents per hour + a premium of 3 1/8 cents = a total of 23 1/8 cents.
The Towne-Halsey system shares with ordinary piece work then, the greatest evil of the latter, namely that its very foundation rests upon deceit, and under both of these systems there is necessarily, as we have seen, a great lack of justice and equality in the starting-point of different jobs.
They "drift" gradually toward an increased output, but under them the attainment of the maximum output of a first-class man is almost impossible. Objection has been made to the use of the word "drifting" in this connection. It is used absolutely without any intention of slurring the Towne-Halsey system or in the least detracting from its true merit.
Towne before The American Society of Mechanical Engineers in 1886, and by Mr. Halsey in 1891, and has since been criticized and ably defended in a series of articles appearing in the "American Machinist." The Towne-Halsey plan consists in recording the quickest time in which a job has been done, and fixing this as a standard.
It would therefore seem desirable to indicate once again and in a little different way the essential difference between the two. The one element which the Towne-Halsey system and task management have in common is that both recognize the all-important fact that workmen cannot be induced to work extra hard without receiving extra pay.
On the other hand, the tendency of the men to soldier on new work which is started, and on such portions as are still done on day work, is even greater under the Towne-Halsey plan than under piece work. To illustrate: Workmen, like the rest of mankind, are more strongly influenced by object lessons than by theories. The effect on men of such an object lesson as the following will be apparent.
In the writer's judgment, the Towne-Halsey plan is a great invention, and, like many other great inventions, its value lies in its simplicity.
Halsey recommends the payment of one third of the difference as the best premium for most cases. The difference between this system and ordinary piece work is that the workman on piece work gets the whole of the difference between the actual time of a job and the standard time, while under the Towne-Halsey plan he gets only a fraction of this difference.
There is no doubt that there is more or less confusion in the minds of many of those who have read about the task management and the Towne-Halsey system. This extends also to those who are actually using and working under these systems. This is practically true in England, where in some cases task management is actually being used under the name of the "Premium Plan."
The essence of task management lies in the fact that the control of the speed problem rests entirely with the management; and, on the other hand, the true strength of the Towne-Halsey system rests upon the fact that under it the question of speed is settled entirely by the men without interference on the part of the management.
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