No system of management, however good, should be applied in a wooden way. The proper personal relations should always be maintained between the employers and men; and even the prejudices of the workmen should be considered in dealing with them.
"The employer who goes through his works with kid gloves on, and is never known to dirty his hands or clothes, and who either talks to his men in a condescending or patronizing way, or else not at all, has no chance whatever of ascertaining their real thoughts or feelings.
Above all is it desirable that men should be talked to on their own level by those who are over them. Each man should be encouraged to discuss any trouble which he may have, either in the works or outside, with those over him. Men would far rather even be blamed by their bosses, especially if the 'tearing out' has a touch of human nature and feeling in it, than to be passed by day after day without a word, and with no more notice than if they were part of the machinery.
"The opportunity which each man should have of airing his mind freely, and having it out with his employers, is a safety-valve; and if the superintendents are reasonable men, and listen to and treat with respect what their men have to say, there is absolutely no reason for labor unions and strikes.
"It is not the large charities (however generous they may be) that are needed or appreciated by workmen so much as small acts of personal kindness and sympathy, which establish a bond of friendly feeling between them and their employers.
"The moral effect of this system on the men is marked. The feeling that substantial justice is being done them renders them on the whole much more manly, straightforward, and truthful. They work more cheerfully, and are more obliging to one another and their employers. They are not soured, as under the old system, by brooding over the injustice done them; and their spare minutes are not spent to the same extent in criticising their employers."
The writer has a profound respect for the working men of this country. He is proud to say that he has as many firm friends among them as among his other friends who were born in a different class, and he believes that quite as many men of fine character and ability are to be found among the former as in the latter. Being himself a college educated man, and having filled the various positions of foreman, master mechanic, chief draftsman, chief engineer, general superintendent, general manager, auditor, and head of the sales' department, on the one hand, and on the other hand having been for several years a workman, as apprentice, laborer, machinist, and gang boss, his sympathies are equally divided between the two classes.
He is firmly convinced that the best interests of workmen and their employers are the same; so that in his criticism of labor unions he feels that he is advocating the interests of both sides.
Источник: F. W. Taylor. Shop management. New York and London: Harper & Brothers publishers, 1911. P. 184.