• Frederick Winslow Taylor
• Henry Ford

How work was changing

• becoming more subdivided so less satisfying
• skilled workers were replaced with semi-skilled workers, who were more interchangeable
• workers had less control over their work, but they still had some

Two things that took away that control of work--Taylorism and the assembly line

Frederick Winslow Taylor invented Scientific Management

• study how the most efficient workers do the job, step by step, and tell other workers how to do it the same way
• use a stopwatch to time how long each step should take
• give workers bonuses for producing more
• improved tools (high speed tool steel)
• workers felt that they were expected to be machines
  

Was Taylorism a hegemonic discourse?

• hegemonic discourse=a way the people who have power in society manipulate our ideas to keep themselves in power
• the manipulated idea here is that doing a task in the most efficient way is most important--that idea became a part of the culture
• but in many cases workers successfully resisted being told how to do their work
• improved productivity had as much to do with the introduction of better machines powered by electricity as with management
• Taylor figured out how men could shovel more efficiently, but instead they were replaced by conveyor belts

Workers were already discontented before the introduction of the assembly line

• in some industries annual turnover was over 100%--workers stayed in a job on average less than a year
• Henry Ford had designed a practical automobile and wanted to lower the cost through mass production
• he doubled wages to $5 a day in 1910, before the introduction of the assembly line
• a new factory with electric powered machines made it possible to experiment with the organization of work, putting machines for the first time in the order of the work sequence
  
• the first step was to further subdivide work--most jobs were to do over and over again a task that took less than a minute
• the last step is to add the moving conveyor belt to bring the piece from one worker to the next
• Modern Times
• dramatic improvement in the amount of labor needed to assemble a car, from 1260 man hours to 228 (p. 144)

Higher wages

• Ford insisted that some of the profits should go into higher pay
• made workers more willing to put up with assembly line work
• the higher wage only went to the most productive (and docile) workers
• workers who were paid more bought Ford cars

Other models:

• General Motors pioneered decentralized divisions and the annual model change
• scientific management was replaced with industrial psychology
• welfare capitalists argued that safety was as important as efficiency and created a loyal workforce

To what extent was this applied to the home?

• history of household technology
• some jobs moved outside the home: canning vegetables, making soap and candles, baking bread, for a short time laundry and cooking meals
  
• machines replace servants
• women spent just as much time doing housework; machines made the work easier and quicker but standards went up
• the results of housework became a form of display