The Workman's Compensation

       

      How can someone, hour after hour, day after day, year in and year out, tighten approximately the same nut to the same bolt and not go mad? That most working people do not, in fact, go mad is due in large measure to a phenomenon so common that it is found wherever people labor in industry: taking it easy. It would take some kind of real mental case to do all the work one could all day long. No one expects it. Taking it easy on the job while someone else covers your work, or "working on and off," as it is usually called in America, is an established part of the working life.

      Working on and off, however, has its limits. The rules are infinitely varied, subtle, and flexible, and, of course, they are always changing. Management, up to a certain level at least, is aware of the practice, and in some industries employs entire cadres of people to curtail or pat an end to it. Simultaneously, the workers are subtly doing their best to keep it going and to extend it wherever possible.

      Every worker has a highly developed sense of how much work is expected of him. When he feels that the expectation is excessive, he tries to do something about it. This instinct has to do with the political nature of work itself, something every modern worker understands. The bosses want more from the worker than they are willing to give in return. The workers give work, and the bosses give money. The exchange is never quite equal, and the discrepancy is called profit. Since the bosses cannot do without profit, workers have an edge. A good worker in a key spot could, so long as he kept up production, take all the coffee breaks he wanted, and the bosses would very likely look the other way. He could also choose to cut down on the coffee breaks, apply himself, and increase production, and then ask for and get more money. But that would be self-defeating, and he knows it. It would also place him in competition with other workers, which would be playing into the bosses’ hands. What he would rather do is create some slack for himself and enjoy his job more.

      At present on the West Coast, when a gang of longshoremen working on cargo start a shift, they often divide themselves into two equal groups and toss a coin. One group goes into the far reaches of the ship抯 hold and sits around. The other group starts loading cargo, usually working with a vengeance, since each one of them is doing the work of two men. An hour later, the groups change places. In other words, although my fellow longshoremen and I are getting paid for eight hours, on occasion we work only four. If someone reading this feels a sense of moral outrage because we are sitting down on the job, I am sorry. I have searched my mind in vain for a polite way to tell that reader to go to hell.

      If you are that reader, I would recommend that you abandon your outrage and begin thinking about doing something similar for yourself. You probably already have, even if you won't admit it. White collar office workers, too, have come under criticism recently for robbing their bosses of their full-time services. Too much time is being spent around the Mr. Coffee machine, and some people (would you believe it?) have even been having personal conversations on company time. In fact, one office-system expert recently said that he had yet to encounter a business work place that was functioning at more than about 60 percent efficiency.

      Management often struggles hard to set up a situation where work is done in series: a worker receives an article of manufacture, does something to it, and passes it on to another worker, who does something else to it and then passes it on to the next guy, and so on. The assembly line is a perfect example of this. Managers like this type of manufacture because it is more efficient ?that is, it achieves more production. They also like it for another reason, even if they will not admit it: it makes it very difficult for the worker to do anything other than work.

      Frederick W. Taylor, the efficiency expert who early in this century conducted the time-and-motion studies that led to the assembly-line process, tried to reduce workers to robots, all in the name of greater production. His staff of experts, each armed with clipboard and stopwatch, studied individual workers with a view toward eliminating unnecessary movement. They soon found a great deal of opposition from the workers.

      Most people not directly engaged in daily work express disapproval when they hear of people working on and off. A studied campaign with carefully chosen language -- "a full day's work for a full day's pay,?" taking a free ride" -- has been pushed by certain employers to discredit the practice, and their success is such that I rarely discuss it except with other workers. My response is personal, and I feel no need to defend it: If I am getting a free ride, how come I am so tired when I go home at the end of a shift?

     

      工作者的补偿

      一个人怎么能够一个小时接着一个小时、日复一日、年复一年给同样的螺栓拧紧同样的螺母而不发疯呢?其实，大部分劳动者并没有发疯，很大程度上归因于无论在哪里工作，都有这样一个现象，慢慢来。一个人恐怕要有某种真正的精神病才能一整天竭尽全力地干活。没有人希望那样。在别人帮你照看你的工作时，你就不紧不慢地干，也就是像美国人通常说的那样“干干停停”，是工作生涯的一个既定部分。

      然而，干干停停有它的限度。规则林林总总，微妙而灵活，而且一直在变。管理层，至少是一定级别的管理层，已经意识到了这种行为，并且雇佣了专职干部来减少或消除工作中干干停停的行为。而同时，工人们又在尽力巧妙地把它保持下去，而且不失时机地加以推行。

      每个工人都深知别人期望他干多少活。当他感到期望过分时，他就试图找点办法来对付。这种本能与工作本身的政治属性有关，每一个现代工人都明白。老板从工人身上的索取远远超出了工人愿意作为回报的付出。工人付出劳动，老板支付报酬。这种交换从来不是很平等的，它们之间的差额称作利润。由于老板不能没有利润，工人们就占了上风。一个在关键岗位的好工人，只要他保持着产量不降低，可以随心所欲地利用工间休息，而老板很可能装作没看见。他也可以缩短工间休息，努力干活，增加生产，然后要求并得到更多的钱。但那是自我作践的办法，他也明白这一点，这会使他处于与其他工人对立的地位，那样无疑对老板有利。他倒宁愿给自己创造一些清闲，更多地享受一下他的工作。

      目前在西海岸，当一群装卸货物的码头工人开始上班时，他们时常将自己平均分成两组，然后掷硬币。一组工人到远远的船舱边上闲坐，另一组工人开始装货，通常干得很猛，因为每一个人在干两个人的工作。一小时后，两组人换班，换句话说，尽管我和我的同伴们拿着8个小时的工资，但有时我们只干4个小时的工作。如果有人看到这里会因为我们怠工而产生道义上的愤慨，我觉得很抱歉。我白白地绞尽脑汁想找到一个礼貌的说法，告诉这位读者，让他见鬼去吧。

      如果你是那位读者，我建议你消消气，开始想想你自己做类似的事。可能你已经这样做了，即使你不愿意承认。最近，白领办公人员也因不给老板提供全工时服务而受到批评。边喝咖啡边聊天的时间太多，有些人(你相信吗?)甚至在上班时间聊天。事实上，一位研究办公制度的专家最近说，他还没有碰到过一个工作效率超过60%的业务场所。

      管理层时常努力建立一种连续工作的环境，一个工人接到一件产品，做些活儿，把它传给另一个工人，这个工人接着做，然后把它传给下一个工人，这样继续下去，生产流水线是这方面的极好例子。管理者们喜欢这种生产方式，因为它更加有效率——就是说，它提高了产量。即使他们不愿意承认，他们喜欢这种生产方式还有另外一个原因：它可以使工人除了干活之外很难做其他事情。

      生产效率方面的专家弗雷德里克·W·泰勒在本世纪初期进行的时间和运动的研究，产生了生产流水线法，在提高生产力的名义下，试图把工人变成机器人。他的专家组，每人拿着书写板和秒表，研究单个工人的动作以去除不必要的动作。不久他们就发现工人们很反感这样做。

      没直接从事日常工作的大多数人，在听说有人上班干干停停时，都对此表示不赞成。一些雇主精心策划了一场运动，其用词颇为讲究——干一天工作，拿一天钱，“只拿钱不干活”——他们大获成功，故而除了跟别的工人说，我基本上不提这回事。我对此事有我个人的看法，我觉得没有必要为之辩护：如果我只拿钱不干活，我上完一次班回家后怎么会那么累?

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