"Worker isolation, Stagnant wage policy, 2-tier wages"DEFINIONS needed pls

[oscar111]

seminewbie wants definition of terms used by Trucker in his OP on Greatest Page.

Already know of speedups {Taylorism}

Anyone? If i dont know the definitions, i am sure others dont as well.

[drm604]

1. I would also like definitions.

Including the definition of "speedups".

[oscar111]

4. speedup is when boss says "you will go from 4O item/day, to 6O"

same pay.

I see downsizing as a form of speedup. Fewer workers must thereafter do the work that was done by downsized folks, who are GONE.

Taylorism was about 1914.. Mr. Taylor measured carefully what each factory worker did, and how long it took. Then the boss demanded a worker do it faster. Or else.

PS Rate buster is a worker who on his own works faster than the average Joe. Leading Boss to see that maybe all should be forced to speed things up. But what if Ratebuster is an athlete, or has rare eye-hand coordianton, like the rare typist who can do 140 words and no errors?

[oscar111]

5. RATEBUSTER also defined right here

for you all.

see my re just above or nearly above.

PS ratebusters are usually not showered with love and kisses.

[Coastie for Truth]

2. Leonard Rapping's course

Years ago (my gosh - 44 years ago?) - I had a Labor Economics course with Labor Economist Len Rapping -- all of these topics were covered.

It's been 44 years - and seven or eight house moves and a bunch of jobs -- so the books and class notes are long gone -- but you might try Googling Rappings papers.

At the time I took his course he was doing research on "spillover" - which is where the presence of unionized jobs in a community requires a non-union employer to over "something extra" - this is the Henry J. Kaiser and Mesta machine Co. model.

These would be the kind of things Len was publishing.

[acmejack]

3. I'll try

Wage stagnation is an extended period of little or no increase in worker wages.

Two tier wage system is a situation where older workers agree that newer workers may be hired on a lower pay scale.

Worker isolation is anything from lone workers on the farms to workers in cubicles at a call center. Workers are kept physically or environmentally segregated from their peers. A preventive to unionizing, as are the others.

Speed ups are the increasing of a quota or some other metric resulting in an increased work output, higher individual productivity.

[dcfirefighter]

6. Yeah, god help you

if you do your job better than others and expect to be paid as such.

[acmejack]

7. First hand knowledge?

If so, I know what you mean. They're doing everything they can to prevent any unionizing or like United, simply defaulting.

[dcfirefighter]

8. sort of

I support collective bargaining, and worker's rights, but I have no problem with workers who have higher productivity getting paid more.

In a field associated with mine, emergency medical services, pay is strictly by seniority and hours worked. However, 20% of the people do 80% of the work: In a 12 hour shift, they might make 15 responses, while someone else sandbags and takes 3 runs. It pisses me off. In some industries there's little opportunity to do more work than the next guy, but in others, it aught to be encouraged. At one time US workers were the most productive in the world (and we're still pretty close). That productivity should be encouraged and rewarded.

[oscar111]

9. THREAD SUMMARY, DEFINITIONS

best i have seen is the re by

acmejack,

a few re's up from here.
It is officialy no. 3, tho it is listed at the fifth placing.

and of course my own two re's

thanks and a tip of the hat to acmejack

BTW, a course in industrial sociology was the source of my knowing of speedup. I easily believe what Trucker said, that most have no idea that these abuses even have names, that they have been going on since ancient Rome... or even ancient-er city of Ur. Many of the practices.

Same is true of finance tricks. Our precollege schools .. and many college major fields... are scoured clean of info about tricks. What engneer ever gets "2 tier wagees" or "speedup" in a course? None. Yet they come to think they are smart.

[German-Lefty]

10. Engineering is different

What engneer ever gets "2 tier wages" or "speedup" in a course?
What engineer experiences them in the workplace? There are few metrics so it's hard to measure what a programmer or engineer does. Sure you can demand I write 10% more lines of code. I'll just give you 10% crap in each program.

Few of us use collective bargaining, so it's not like we can have 2 tiers. By the way "2 tier wages" sounds like a bad idea. Aren't the labor/union groups interested in solidarity? Where's the solidarity in giving a group of new guys less pay than you?

[oscar111]

11. Hi, GrmnLfty:meant, Engr's should know these things so can vote better

sure,some tricks are not to be in their job life, ever.

but i think we should all know what is done to the folks at the bottom, so we can see the need to vote dem, not RW.

MSM doesnt tell us of life in the lower middle class and lower class in any detail, so many RW hate radio hosts can float lies about the details.

eg "Life is easy down there"... when in truth bill collectors and LL's and crime and no access to dr's or lawyers... and the many wildly ripoff stores leave folks there frazzled.

eg "they are all lazy", when in truth, there is a huge 14 million Job Shortage. See my sig.

I know some engineers are fine folks, but just meant to slam the ones who are very RW. Seems most are RW, judging from comments over the years, and from my college Engineering Dept office doors... cartoons stuck up on them.. all far right. Other departments/vocations also are ignorant of life at the bottom.. such as majors in Business.. In chemistry.. in Physical Education.

I agree with you on the 2 tier thing.