History of the Organization of Work

WRITTEN BY: Michael T. Hannan Melvin Kranzberg

History of the organization of work, history of the methods by which society structures the
activities and labour necessary to its survival. Work is essential in providing the basic physical
needs of food, clothing, and shelter. But work involves more than the use of tools and
techniques. Advances in technology, which will always occur, help to extend the reach of the
hand, expand muscle power, enlarge the senses, and multiply the capacities of the mind. The
story of work is still unfolding, with great changes taking place throughout the world and in a
more accelerated fashion than ever before. The form and nature of the work process help
determine the character of a civilization; in turn, a society’s economic, political, and cultural
characteristics shape the form and nature of the work process as well as the role and status of
the worker within the society.

The world of work—comprising all interactions between workers and employers, organizations,
and the work environment—is marked by the constant adaptation to changes in the
technological, cultural, political, and economic environments. The study of historical changes in
the organization of work can perhaps lead to a better understanding of the present problems—
now on a worldwide scale—that accompany ongoing technical, political, and economic changes.
(See organizational analysis.) Hence, this article employs both historical and current
perspectives in order to provide a basis for understanding work in today’s world and to consider
possible changes in the future.

Organization Of Work In Preindustrial Times

Prehistory
Organization of work may have begun before the evolution of Homo sapiens. Along with tools, a
more complex brain structure, and linguistic communication, the division of labour (job
specialization) may have been responsible for starting the human conquest of nature and
differentiating human beings from other animal species.

In the earliest stages of human civilization, work was confined to simple tasks involving the most
basic of human needs: food, child care, and shelter. A division of labour likely resulted when
some individuals showed proficiency in particular tasks, such as hunting animals or gathering
plants for food. As a means of increasing the food supply, prehistoric peoples could organize the
work of foraging and hunting and, later, agriculture. There could be no widespread geographic
division of labour, however, because populations were sparse and isolated. The uncertain
availability of food allowed little surplus for exchange, and there were few contacts with groups
in different places that might have specialized in obtaining different foods.

Age, sex, and class

The most obvious division of labour arose from differences in age and sex. The oldest people in
the tribe lacked strength and agility to hunt or forage far afield and so performed more-
sedentary tasks. The very youngest members of the tribe were similarly employed and were
taught simple food gathering. The sexual division of labour was based largely upon physical
differences, with men taking on tasks such as hunting while women specialized in food
gathering, child rearing, and cooking.

The earliest human groupings offer no evidence of a division of labour based upon class. The
challenges of providing food made it necessary for the whole group to contribute, so there
could be no leisure class or even a class of full-time specialists producing articles not directly
related to the food supply. There were, however, part-time specialists; a person who excelled at
fashioning flint tools and weapons could produce enough to trade any surplus for food.

Communal organization
Throughout human history, work has often required organization. Capture of game and fish
required varying degrees of cooperation among members of the group. Communal activity of
this type had important social implications. Food had to be equitably distributed, and a leader
was needed to organize and direct the group. Because the basic social group was the family
tribe, kin relationships—from the tribal chief down—formed the basis for the “managerial
hierarchy.” Bones of large animals killed by hunters have been found in sites of the Upper
Paleolithic Period (about 40,000 BCE to about 10,000 BCE), indicating a high degree of
organization in hunting at this early stage of the human race. Shortly thereafter men began
using dogs to assist with hunting.

Pottery
A more complex organization of work came with the development of pottery. While some sort
of clay adequate for making passable pottery can be found nearly everywhere, the best potter’s
clay is not universally distributed. Thus, people in some locations were able to make pottery
products that could be traded elsewhere. Skilled workmanship and specialized tools aided
production, perhaps further encouraging specialization. There is no conclusive evidence that the
earliest potters spent their full time at that task or that pottery making was carried on by
women in its earliest stages (before introduction of the potter’s wheel). There is reason to
believe, however, that in prehistoric times some organization of the work existed. In some
societies, for instance, the gathering of the clay and firing materials may have been the work of
the men, while the women may have fashioned and decorated the pots.

Textiles
The same type of specialization might also have been involved in the making of textiles. Early
protective garments were derived from animal skins. The development of agriculture reduced
the supply of available skins and required a substitute material for clothing. To make textiles,
yarn had to be spun; the earliest apparatus for this work consisted of a spindle and a distaff (a
forked stick holding the unspun fibres).
Agriculture
The assignment of tasks in primitive agricultural societies may have involved a division of work
along sexual lines, with the fields entrusted to the women while the men hunted (although men
would have helped with the more physically demanding tasks such as clearing land). Because
crop cultivation began as a part-time means of supplementing the food source, there was little
likelihood of full-time specialization in primitive agriculture. Yet even in its earliest stages
agriculture was significant to the organization of work, for it provided a slight surplus that could
be used to support human society’s first real specialists: makers of metal tools and weapons.

Metallurgy
Although the origins of metallurgy are as yet unclear, the development and use of copper tools
and weapons created a new organization of work in which some persons devoted their full time
to mining, smelting, and forging (see Bronze Age). Although deposits of flint for stone tools and
weapons were fairly widely and evenly distributed, copper ores were not. Some of the earlier
copper artifacts and remains of early copper mines have been found in areas where climate and
topography most likely prevented agricultural development. Geography thus made it difficult for
the earliest miners and metalworkers to cultivate crops. Besides, the techniques of prospecting,
mining, smelting, casting, and forging were probably so demanding of physical strength and
mental concentration as to preclude the metallurgist from farming or hunting activities.

Because copper ores are generally located in mountainous regions, the metal had to be
transported to its lowland users. The specializations of mining and metalworking could evolve
only after cultivation efforts created yields that could exceed subsistence levels. Thus,
metalworkers and their families were supported by the surplus foodstuffs of farmers. Not
surprisingly, metallurgy developed first near the farming valleys of the great river systems of the
Nile, Tigris-Euphrates, and Indus, all of which provided a high yield of foodstuffs per acre. If
metalworkers pursued their occupations full-time, then it is likely that other craft specialties
developed in a similar manner. The combination of agricultural surpluses with copper and
bronze tools provided the basis for development of the great irrigation civilizations of the
Middle East. There the organization of work developed along lines that remained unchanged for
the next 5,000 years, until the beginnings of mechanization and industrialization in the 18th
century.

The ancient world

In his seminal book Oriental Despotism (1957), historian and political scientist Karl Wittfogel
presented a general theory of the development of ancient civilizations. He found examples of
large-scale systematic organization of work, the emergence of social classes, and widespread
specialization. Wittfogel believed that the development of irrigation projects in such areas as
Mesopotamia and Egypt led to the use of mass labour, to an organizational hierarchy for
coordinating and directing these activities, and to government control for ensuring proper
distribution of the water. (See hydraulic civilization.) Though tribal societies had some form of
government, this was usually personal in nature, exercised by a patriarch over a tribal group
related by various degrees of kinship. Now, for the first time, an impersonal government as a
distinct and permanent institution was established.

Irrigation increased the food supply, allowing larger numbers of people to agglomerate into
towns and cities. Because farmers were vulnerable to attack, armies were needed; this created
the development of an officer class. Town specialization of labour brought the emergence of
potters, weavers, metalworkers, scribes, lawyers, and physicians, while the new surpluses also
created the basis for commerce. The more complex economy created a need for record keeping,
so writing—of which the first examples come from the bookkeeping records of the storehouses
in ancient Mesopotamia—was born.

Wittfogel’s theory has been modified by scholars who point to urban civilizations that lacked
large-scale irrigation works. In their view, several factors, including geographic features, natural-
resource distribution, climate, kinds of crops and animals raised, and relations with
neighbouring peoples, entered into the response to the environment. (The work of these
scholars represents a “systems” approach to defining the origins of organized societies.)

Social classes
In any case, by the time written history began, distinct economic and social classes were in
existence, with members of each class occupying a certain place in the organization of work. At
the apex of the social pyramid stood the ruler (often worshiped as a divinity in Mesopotamia
and Egypt) and the nobles (probably grown out of a warrior group that had subjugated its
neighbours). Closely aligned with them were the priests; possessing knowledge of writing and
mathematics, the priests served as government officials, organizing and directing the economy
and overseeing clerks and scribes. The traders and merchants, who distributed and exchanged
goods produced by others, were below the noble-priest class in the social pyramid. A sizable
group of artisans and craftsmen, producing specialized goods, belonged to the lower economic
classes. Even lower in the social hierarchy were the peasants, and at the bottom of the social
scale were the slaves, most likely originating as war captives or ruined debtors. The social
structure in Classical Greece and Rome followed these lines. For relatively short periods of time,
some democracies did away with the ruling group, substituting a class of free landholders and
providing a citizen army of warriors, but the basic economic organization remained unchanged.

Certain characteristics of the ancient organization of work emerged from the social stratification
described above. Chief among these was the hereditary nature of occupations and status. At
certain times and places—in the later Roman Empire, for example—heredity of occupation was
enforced by law, but tradition was usually sufficient to maintain the system. The social structure
remained remarkably stable and was reinforced by the organizations of workers engaged in the
same occupation. These groups—some voluntary and some required by law—can be viewed as
prototypes of the medieval guilds.

Agriculture
The family farm
The basic agricultural work unit in the ancient world was the family. Even in certain regions
where the state owned the land, farms were allocated by family. Furthermore, when large
farming estates were formed during the Roman Empire, the structure of rural society was little
affected, because the owners commonly left cultivation of their land to peasants who became
their tenants.

Work within the family farm unit often was divided along sexual lines: the men commonly bore
chief responsibility for such seasonal tasks as plowing, sowing, tilling, and harvesting, while the
women cared for children, prepared food, and made clothing. If slaves were available, their
work was similarly divided. During planting and harvesting seasons, the entire family performed
fieldwork, with sons and daughters entering into an apprenticeship under their parents.
Technology also influenced work organization. The usual draft team in antiquity—a pair of oxen
—required two operators: a driver for the team and a guide for the plow.

Estates
In the large estates, or latifundia, of the Roman Empire, the complex organization of work
resulted in the creation of a hierarchy of supervisors. The Greek historian Xenophon (5th–4th
century BCE) and the Roman statesman Marcus Porcius Cato (3rd–2nd century BCE) wrote
handbooks for the management of such estates. Cato also outlined the work organization for a
medium-sized farm. For an estate of 150 acres (60 hectares) with olive trees, he recommended
one overseer, a housekeeper, five farmhands, three carders, a donkey driver, a swineherd, and a
shepherd. To these 13 permanent labourers, Cato recommended the hiring of extra hands for
the harvest period.

On the larger latifundia that developed from about the 2nd century BCE, the owner was usually
nonresident, often because he had many scattered estates. Direction of the affairs of each was
left in the hands of a bailiff under whose command slaves, numbering in the hundreds or even
in the thousands, were divided into gangs charged with specific duties.

Crop specialization
Ancient agricultural work was also characterized by specialization in crops: vineyards and olive
groves were concentrated in Greece and Italy, while cereals were cultivated in the richer soils of
Sicily, North Africa, and Asia. Wine and oil required craftsmen to produce amphorae for storage
and conveyance, as well as tradesmen and small sailing vessels for transport.

Crafts
Economic growth, sophistication of taste, and enlarged markets ultimately brought mass
production of a sort, with large workshops dedicated to the production of a single item. These
workshops, however, never achieved the size of even a small modern factory; a building in
which a dozen persons worked was considered a large factory, though a few workshops were
larger.
The earliest specialized craftsmen were probably itinerant, gravitating to wherever their services
were in demand. As market centres developed, however, craftsmen had less of a need to travel,
because their products could be traded in these centres. Eventually, market development and
economic growth increased the number of specialized crafts, fostered the organization of
guildlike groups, and contributed to a geographic division of labour, with members of one craft
located in a special quarter of a city or in one area of a country. In the pottery industry,
specialization was carried even further, with shaping, firing, and decoration sometimes done in
separate establishments and with workshops specializing in cooking pots, jars, goblets, and
funerary urns.

Slaves were put to work in a variety of areas, including the crafts workshops. The chief examples
of large-scale production by slaves were in mining and metallurgy, in which the conditions of
labour were harsh and the organization of work was highly structured. In the silver mines at
Laurium, in ancient Greece, the master miner commanded three gangs of labourers. The
strongest workers handled picks at the ore face, weaker men or boys carried ore from the mine,
and women and old men sifted the ore-bearing rock. The miners worked 10-hour shifts
(followed by 10 hours of rest) in dark and narrow passages with smoky lamps that made the air
almost unbreathable. Aboveground, the master smelter supervised the workshops, in which the
strongest men worked the mortar and the weakest the hand mill. Metallurgical working of the
ore was carried out by small units, because the small leather bellows limited the size of the
furnace. Metallurgy thus remained essentially a handicraft.

After weapons and tools, the chief use of metal was for ornamentation. The metalworker was
more artisan, or even artist, than industrial worker, and in the trade there were patternmakers,
smelters, turners, metal chasers, gilders, and specialized goldsmiths and silversmiths.

Large-scale building
The monumental public-works projects of the ancient world demonstrate a remarkable degree
of human organization in the absence of power and machinery. The Great Pyramid at Giza, built
about 2500 BCE, before the Egyptians knew the pulley or had wheeled vehicles, covers 13 acres
(5.3 hectares) and contains the staggering total of 2,300,000 colossal blocks of granite and
limestone weighing an average of 5,000 pounds (2,300 kilograms) each. There exists no
complete historical or archaeological record of the exact methods of quarrying, transportation,
and construction of the pyramids, and what evidence remains is often contradictory. Obviously,
the need to organize the work on a systematic and rational basis was superbly met. It is
estimated that some 100,000 workers were involved over 20 years in building the Great
Pyramid, and the logistic problem alone, housing and feeding this large army of workers,
required a high degree of administrative skill.

The master builder, who planned and directed the erection of the pyramids and other great
structures, occupied a high position in society. Ancestor of the modern architect and engineer,
he was a trusted court noble and adviser to the ruler. He directed a host of subordinates,
superintendents, and foremen, each with his scribes and recorders.
Although some slaves were employed in building the pyramids, most of the builders were
peasants, drafted as a form of service tax (corvée) owed the state and employed when the Nile
was flooding their fields. Workers were not regarded as expendable; overseers and foremen
took pride in reporting on their safety and welfare. In a record of a quarrying expedition to the
desert, the leader boasted that he had not lost a man or a mule. The labourers were organized
into gangs: skilled workers cut granite for the columns, architraves, doorjambs, lintels, and
casing blocks; masons and other craftsmen dressed, polished, and laid the blocks and probably
erected ramps to drag the stones into place.

The Greeks and Romans used advanced organizational techniques in the building of
monuments. The Roman road network, aqueducts, public buildings, public baths, harbours,
docks, and lighthouses demanded exceptional skill in organizing materials and workmen,
implying in turn a rational division of labour among craftsmen.

Medieval farming and craft work

The organization of work and division of labour, which might be said to have reached a peak
during the Roman Empire, declined as the empire disintegrated. The social and political
fragmentation and economic decay of the late empire reduced most of western Europe to
small-scale, self-sufficient economic units. As this happened, the market for specialized
production disappeared until trade and town life revived in the form of the new feudal society.
The growth of interregional commerce stimulated demand for specialized crafts that would
serve growing markets.

Important technological innovations in agriculture, power, transportation, metallurgy, and

machines created new forms of specialization. The emergence of the new burgher (middle)
class, with rapidly growing wealth and breadth of enterprise, provided the basis for a more
rational management of production. These social forces hastened the rise of industrialization.

Class structure
Social divisions, or class structure, in the medieval world reflected a division of labour. The
noble class essentially contributed to the organization of work. Because they controlled the
land, basic to production in this agrarian society, the nobles alone possessed the wealth to
purchase the products of artisans, to buy goods brought from a distance, to acquire the
weapons and armour made by metallurgists, and to construct castles and fortresses. The lords
also decided, in accordance with prevailing custom, how the farmwork should be organized.

The clergy were both consumers and producers whose primary responsibility was the spiritual
care of their parishioners. The monasteries were self-sufficient agrarian units that often
produced a surplus for trade; indeed, the monks experimented in improving farming techniques
and in producing special cheeses and wines that were sold outside the monastery. Finally, the
great churches required specialists in stained glass, bell founding, stonemasonry, wood carving,
and other trades.
The bulk of the population comprised farmers of varying legal and social status. Most were serfs
bound to the plots of ground their ancestors had tilled and provided services or goods to the
lord of the manor, who extended protection in return. A few inhabitants of the manor were
tenant farmers, or sharecroppers, who rented land in return for payments of a share of the
produce. Fewer still were free farm labourers who worked for wages. Slavery had all but
disappeared. Because the manor was practically self-sufficient, peasants of whatever status
performed a variety of tasks connected with their agricultural occupation.

Agricultural production
Four interrelated factors determined the work organization of medieval agriculture: the
economic self-sufficiency of the manor, the development of mixed agriculture based on crops
and livestock, such technological improvements as the heavy wheeled plow and rigid horse
collar, and the system of land tenure and division of holdings. Each peasant household produced
nearly everything it needed. Exceptions included the use of a feudal mill or winepress for which
the peasants paid not in money but with a percentage of the crop being processed.

While stock raising and crop production had been separate enterprises in antiquity, the two
were combined during the Middle Ages in northwestern Europe. Livestock was raised for use as
draft animals and for food, and, because the yield of the grainfields did not greatly exceed
human requirements, stock was pastured on poor land or harvested fields. Thus, a certain
amount of land was reserved for pasturage, and some villager, usually an older member of the
community, became a herdsman.

Communal organization was favoured by the land-tenure arrangements and by the way in which
arable land was divided among villagers. In order to assure an equitable apportionment, the
land was divided into large fields. Each peasant held strips in each field, meaning that the work
of plowing, planting, and harvesting had to be done in common and at the same time.

The wheeled plow, gradually introduced over several centuries, further reinforced communal
work organization. Earlier plows had merely scratched the surface of the soil. The new plow was
equipped with a heavy knife (colter) to dig under the surface, thereby making strip fields
possible. Yet because the new plow required a team of eight oxen—more than any single
peasant owned—plowing (and indeed all heavy work on the manor) was pooled. Such a system
allowed little room for individual initiative; everyone followed established routines, with the
pace of the work set by the ox team.

The craft guilds

In contrast to the land-bound serfs, townspeople of the Middle Ages were free. Some engaged
in commerce and formed groups known as merchant guilds. The majority, however, were small
merchant-craftsmen, organized in craft guilds as masters (of highest accomplishment and
status), journeymen (at a middle level), and apprentices (beginners). The medieval master was
typically many things at once: a skilled workman himself; a foreman, supervising journeymen
and apprentices; an employer; a buyer of raw or semifinished materials; and a seller of finished
products. Because medieval craftsmen employed simple hand tools, a workman’s own skill
determined the quantity and quality of his output. Apprentices and journeymen underwent
long periods of learning under the guidance of a more experienced workman. When he could
produce a “masterpiece” that met the approval of the guild masters, the craftsman would gain
full admission into the guild.

Craft guilds were organized through regulations. By controlling conditions of entrance into a
craft, guilds limited the labour supply. By defining wages, hours, tools, and techniques, they
regulated both working conditions and the production process. Quality standards and prices
were also set. Monopolistic in nature, the guilds, either singly or in combination, sought
complete control over their own local markets. In order to attain and protect their monopoly,
the guilds acquired a political voice and in some locations achieved the right to elect a number
of their own members to the town council. In some towns, such as Liège, Utrecht, and Cologne,
guilds achieved complete political control. The 32 craft guilds in Liège, for example, so
dominated the town after 1384 that they named the town council and governors and required
all important civic decisions to be approved by a majority vote of their membership.

Craft guilds reached their peak prosperity in the 14th century. Specialties had become so
differentiated that larger towns typically had more than 100 guilds. In northern Europe, for
example, at the beginning of the period, carpenters built houses and made furniture. In time,
furniture making became a new craft, that of joinery, and the joiners broke from the carpenters
to establish their own guilds. The wood-carvers and turners (who specialized in furniture turned
on a lathe) founded guilds also. Those who painted and gilded furniture and wood carvings
were also represented by a separate guild.

This era of intense specialization was marked by a countermovement toward amalgamation of

different crafts—a tendency that reflected the growth of the market and the desire of
enterprising masters to expand their trading abilities. This came at the expense of the handicraft
function. As craft differentiation proliferated, numerous crafts wound up producing the same or
similar articles. This stimulated competitive forces among craftsmen who needed to assure
themselves of raw materials and a market. Because of this, masters were tempted to employ
members of other crafts, and conflicts inevitably arose.

The same widening of the market led to differentiation of classes within a craft. As the trading
function grew more important, those who remained craftsmen fell into a condition of
dependence upon the traders. Eventually, merchant guilds—originally representatives of traders
only—absorbed the craft guilds.

The craft guilds also suffered a breakdown in structure. Because the masters sought to retain
the profits of the growing market for themselves, they made it increasingly difficult for
journeymen to enter their class, preferring instead to employ them as wage workers.
Apprentices similarly had little hope of rising to mastership. Thus, the master-journeyman-
apprentice relationship gave way to an employer-employee arrangement, with the master
performing the functions of merchant while his employees did craftwork. Conditions for
development of the early industrial system rose out of the disintegration of this craft-guild
system. The excluded journeymen eventually became a class of free labourers who practiced
their craft for wages outside the town walls—and outside the limitations of the guild
regulations.

Medieval industry
The putting-out system
Certain industries that were small at the outset of the Middle Ages grew to be quite large in
scale, and this growth influenced changes in the organization of work. The most important of
these was the wool-cloth industry.

For reasons of cost and availability, wool was the basic clothing material in western Europe until
the beginning of modern times. Linen and silk were too costly for any large-scale use, and
cotton was grown only in small volumes. The production of cloth from wool involved several
time-consuming steps: cleaning and carding (straightening curled and knotted fibres sheared
from the sheep), spinning the fibres into thread, weaving the thread into cloth, shearing off
knots and roughness, and dyeing. All these processes could be carried on within a single
peasant household, for they required only simple apparatus and rudimentary skills. Typically,
children carded the wool, women operated the spinning wheel, and men worked the loom
shuttles.

The cloth produced by such crude tools and relatively unskilled workers was rough but
serviceable. Those above the peasant class, however, desired the more comfortable and
attractive clothing that was produced by skilled craftsmen. The resulting demand for better
textiles caused the industry to outgrow the peasant household means of production. A new
organization of work, called the putting-out system, was instituted in which a merchant clothier
bought raw wool, “put it out” to be carded, spun, and woven into cloth, and then carried the
cloth through the finishing processes with the help of skilled craftsmen. Because the spinners
and weavers remained peasants, they also earned part of their living from the plots on which
their cottages stood, meaning that agriculture and industry were pursued as something of an
integrated enterprise. The man could work in the field while his wife spun, and in winter the
man helped with textile production. At harvest time every hand was out in the fields, leaving
the spinning wheels and looms temporarily idle.

The putting-out system differed from peasant household production in that the merchant
clothier, or entrepreneur, bought the raw wool and owned the product through all stages of its
preparation (the cottage workers still owned their own spinning wheels, looms, and other
tools). Thus, the peasant farmer came to work on materials that did not belong to him. On the
other hand, the work was performed at home (known as the cottage system or domestic
system) rather than in a factory, and work proceeded at the worker’s pace. The merchant simply
organized the work by arranging the order and sequence of the various technical processes—he
did not supervise the workers’ actual performance. Nevertheless, the merchant clothier who
began putting out cloth came to control the entire production process. This represented a step
toward the industrial capitalism that emerged in the 19th century.
Advances in technology
Growth in the scale of commerce during the Middle Ages was coupled with advances in
technology. Both these phenomena helped transform the nature of work. Of central importance
were the applications of wind power and waterpower; these marked the beginning of the
replacement of human labour by machine power. Starting in the late 10th century,
waterwheels, long used for grinding grain, were applied to many industrial processes that
included tanning, olive pressing, sawing wood, polishing armour, pulverizing stone, and
operating blast-furnace bellows. The first horizontal-axle windmill appeared in western Europe
in 1185, and within a short time windmills could be found from northern England to the Middle
East.

Before the Industrial Revolution, power came from three main sources: humans, draft animals,
and water.The ingenuity people used in harnessing waterpower can be seen in this medieval-
style mill. The waterwheel is turned by a stream and is connected to a shaft that leads into the
building. At the other end of the shaft is a gear. The connection of a series of gears translates
the power from the stream to a shaft that drives a millstone, which grinds flour from grain.(30
sec; 1.84MB)

Before the Industrial Revolution, power came from three main sources: humans, draft animals,
and water.The ingenuity people used in harnessing waterpower can be seen in this medieval-
style mill. The waterwheel is turned by a stream and is connected to a shaft that leads into the
building. At the other end of the shaft is a gear. The connection of a series of gears translates
the power from the stream to a shaft that drives a millstone, which grinds flour from grain.(30
sec; 1.84MB)

Public Domain
The mechanization of the process of fulling (i.e., shrinking and thickening) of cloth illustrates
ways that technology changed the nature of work. Up to the 13th century, fulling had been
accomplished by trampling the cloth or beating it with a fuller’s bat. The fulling mill invented
during the Middle Ages was a twofold innovation: first, two wooden hammers replaced human
feet; and second, the hammers were raised and dropped by the power of a water mill. Only one
man needed to keep the cloth moving properly in the trough, which was filled with water and
fuller’s earth. The mechanization of fulling also caused the cloth industry to relocate along
streams, often away from the established urban textile centres.

Perhaps the best example of specialization of labour in the Middle Ages is to be found in the
large-scale metal-mining industry in central Europe, as described by the German scientist
Georgius Agricola in De re metallica (1556), the leading textbook for miners and metallurgists
for nearly two centuries. In addition to the Bergmeister (“master miner”), the chief mine
administrator, there was a hierarchy of clerical and technical personnel and a series of
craftsmen and mechanics specializing in different phases of the mining operation: miners,
shovelers, windlass operators, carriers, sorters, washers, and smelters. The mines operated five
days a week on a 24-hour basis, with the workday divided into three seven-hour shifts and the
remaining three hours used for changing shifts. Animal power was used wherever possible, with
teams of eight horses hitched in pairs to turn windlasses and raise buckets of ore or drain water
from the mine. Agricola’s illustrations show many types of pumps for mine drainage: crank-
operated, treadmill-operated, and waterpower-operated. There were also suction pumps of
varying degrees of complexity. All were operated by specialized mechanics.

The bellows for mine ventilation were operated either by human and animal power or by
waterpower. Other mining processes were less mechanized and were carried on much as they
had been in antiquity. Ores brought to the surface were taken to a sorting table on which
women, boys, and old men separated the pieces by hand, putting the good ores into wooden
tubs to be carried to the furnaces for smelting.

Monumental construction
The mechanization that was changing the organization of work throughout the medieval period
was little apparent in the construction of castles, cathedrals, and town walls. Technologies that
involved in the lifting of weights, for instance, had made little progress during the Middle Ages,
and, because the freemasons declined to handle large blocks of stone, the Romanesque and
Gothic structures were built with smaller stone blocks, nevertheless achieving grandeur in scale.
The organization of labour differed greatly from that employed in antiquity. These great
monuments were built by free labourers such as carpenters, glaziers, roofers, bell founders, and
many other craftsmen in addition to the stonemasons.

Much can be learned about the nature of medieval construction by studying the records of
these projects as well as the monuments that were built. For a long time it was believed that
medieval craftsmen, especially those engaged in the building of cathedrals, were humble, self-
effacing artisans who laboured piously and anonymously for the glory of God and for their own
salvation. Scholars have dispelled this myth. Medieval builders often left their names or
signatures upon their work, and surviving records show names, wages, and occasionally
protests over wages. There was a high degree of individualism. The artisans were by no means
anonymous: historians have uncovered more than 25,000 names of those who worked on
medieval churches. It has since been concluded that the medieval craftsmen were relatively free
and unfettered when compared to their counterparts in antiquity.

Directing the guild craftsmen was the master mason, who functioned as architect,
administrative official, building contractor, and technical supervisor. He designed the molds, or
patterns, used to cut the stones for the intricate designs of doors, windows, arches, and vaults.
He also designed the building itself, usually copying its elements from earlier structures upon
which he had worked, either as a master or during his apprenticeship. He sketched his plans out
on parchment. As administrator, he kept the accounts, hired and fired the workers, and was
responsible for procurement of materials. As technical supervisor, he was constantly present to
make spot decisions and plans. In the largest projects he was assisted by undermasters.

From the 16th to the 18th century

The proliferation of industry during the early modern period (immediately preceding the
Industrial Revolution) arose from four factors: (1) the growth of wealth, derived partly from the
influx of precious metals from the New World but also from developments in commerce,
banking, and the very concept of money, (2) the growth of markets, (3) the introduction of new
products, and (4) the development of new technologies. These helped increase the scale of
manufacturing industries throughout Europe, which in turn prompted changes in the
organization of work.

The growth in the size of the market was caused only partially by the geographic explorations of
the preceding era and subsequent colonization. Most of the new demand for goods stemmed
from the emergence of the new middle class (or bourgeoisie)—a phenomenon that raised the
standard of living for an enormous population group and stimulated demand for quality goods.
The markets also benefited from the demise of small medieval feudalities, which eventually
gave way to larger political units—the royal kingdoms. When economic influence extended over
a larger jurisdiction, it tended to eliminate many of the local restrictions on trade and commerce
established by the previous smaller political units. Many new products—including spices from
Asia and sugarcane from the New World—were also introduced into Europe, either directly, by
the explorers, or indirectly, through expanded trade with distant points. Increased demand
paralleled the growing affluence and new manners of European society. Handicraft production
no longer sufficed as a means of rising to the pinnacle of society, and, as a result, the power and
influence of the guilds declined.

Genesis of the factory system

Over time the nature of technological change shifted from the introduction of new mechanical
contrivances to developments in the application of power (primarily water and wind) to old
devices and—even more significantly—to the organization of work that would allow production
on a larger scale. This represented the start of the factory system. The organization of
commerce also changed rapidly. New instruments in the fields of banking, insurance, and export
marketing offered an efficient means of making capital available for investment in industrial
enterprises.

In Britain the development of commercial concentration—and hence of industrial scale—was

mainly the work of large companies or corporate bodies such as woolen manufacturers,
ironmasters, and hatmakers. Government encouragement was given by means of special
legislation, especially grants of monopolistic charters. In France, however, the practice of
mercantilism, a government-directed policy aimed at increasing national wealth and power,
meant that the government itself took an active part in developing industries that were state
owned and operated—among them the Gobelins tapestry works and other manufacturers of
furniture, porcelain, or luxury items.

Although the state-run factories in France represented at least two of the essentials of factory
production—the gathering of large groups of workers in one place and the imposition of
disciplinary rules—they did not change the organization of work. Because they produced small
quantities of luxury goods, they operated as large handicraft operations. Furthermore, despite
their size, the French Royal Manufactories did not possess the third prime element of a true
factory system: mechanization. The great historical change in the organization of work came in
18th-century Britain with the onset of the Industrial Revolution, largely as the result of the new
technology of power-driven machinery.

The Industrial Revolution

Mechanization
The new machines introduced in the 18th century demanded a rational organization of job
functions that differed greatly from that of the old handicraft tradition. Adam Smith in The
Wealth of Nations (1776) gave the classic description of the new production system as
exemplified by a pin factory:

One man draws out the wire; another straights it; a third cuts it; a fourth points it; a fifth grinds
it at the top for receiving the head; to make the head requires two or three distinct operations;
to put it on is a peculiar business; to whiten the pin is another; it is even a trade by itself to put
them into the paper; and the important business of making a pin is in this manner divided into
about 18 distinct operations.

According to Smith, a single worker “could scarce, perhaps with his utmost industry, make one
pin in a day, and certainly could not make 20.” The new methods enabled a pin factory to turn
out as many as 4,800 pins a day.

Increases in productivity depended far more upon the rational organization of processes than
upon individual skill. In the textile industry, manual dexterity and alert response proved to be
more valuable than experience; this led to the use of more-inexpensive woman and child labour
in the early mills. Some vestiges of the medieval guild apprenticeship, however, still remained in
the early textile factories, with children sometimes bound as apprentices for a period of at least
seven years, usually up to the age of 21. In some areas the old cottage system of textile
production was moved to the factory, with the entire family employed as a work team. In those
cases the father would be employed for any heavy work while supervising his wife and children
at the machines.

Division of labour in the workplace

The high cost of machinery could be justified only if a heavy and continuous demand existed for
its output. The value placed on machines created a division of labour between the owner of the
machines and the employees who operated them. The owner supervised his workers,
compelling them to work at the pace of the machine. Even in enterprises that were not yet fully
mechanized, the advantages of factory discipline were apparent at an early stage of the
Industrial Revolution. Josiah Wedgwood designed his pottery works at Etruria in England “with a
view to the strictest economy of labour.” His plant was laid out so that the pots were first
formed and then passed through the painting room, the kiln room, the account room (for
inventory control), and to storage before shipping. In potteries before this time, the workers
could roam from one task to another; in Wedgwood’s, the employees were assigned a particular
post and worked at one task only. Out of 278 men, women, and children employed by
Wedgwood in 1790, only 5 had no assigned post; the rest were specialists.

While the argument is sometimes made that the division of labour destroyed skill, the fact is
that it might also have improved the quality of the finished product, for Wedgwood’s pottery
was superior to that of his competitors. It can be said that the division of labour does not so
much destroy skill as limit it to a particular field of development; within a particular task, the
division of labour increases skills by virtue of continued repetition. It is interesting to note that
Wedgwood’s chief difficulty was not so much in training his workers as it was in introducing
them to a novel form of discipline that ran contrary to centuries of independence. It was a
constant test of Wedgwood’s ingenuity to enforce six hours of punctual and constant
attendance upon his workers, to get them to avoid waste, and to keep them from drinking on
the job and taking unauthorized “holidays.” Because he was involved in all the tasks of running
an enterprise and could not continually supervise his workers, he developed a hierarchy of
supervisors and managers.

There can be little doubt that the condition of the workers, especially the women and children,
in the early textile factories was miserable: 14 to 16 hours every day spent performing repetitive
tasks in noisy, foul-smelling, unsanitary surroundings. The workers’ homes were equally
unhealthy. It was at this period that the “social question” arose: why should poverty continue to
exist in a nation that had the capacity to produce enormous quantities of goods? Answers to
that question were to produce new social philosophies, social movements and political
movements that have had major effects on society and politics ever since.

New industries
The introduction of steam-driven machinery—much of it fueled by coal—brought new
industries into being or transformed older ones. Coal was replacing wood as a fuel especially in
England and northern France, where deforestation had made wood scarce. New demands
stimulated growth in the coal-mining industry, yet the organization of labour remained much as
it had when Agricola wrote his description of 16th-century mining. The pressure on fuel supplies
came not only from domestic heating requirements and from the metallurgical trades but also
from the brickmaking, brewing, dyeing, and glassmaking industries. Metalworking trades also
underwent rapid development, as technological innovations fostered the replacement of
wooden machinery with metal and the manufacture of such items as metal nails, glassware, and
iron bearings.

Another factor contributing to the rise of new industries was the religious warfare of the 16th
and 17th centuries. The forced movement of populations helped spread technical capabilities to
new areas. For example, the Protestant Huguenots, expelled from France near the end of the
17th century, carried with them their special skills in metalworking and glassmaking when they
migrated to England, Holland, Germany, and the American colonies.

Urbanization
One of the greatest stimuli toward a more rational organization of work was the growth in
population across Europe from the 17th to the 19th century—especially in the urban centres. It
is possible that only a few European cities—Paris and the great Italian commercial cities of
Venice, Genoa, and Naples—had as many as 100,000 people at the beginning of the modern
era. London may have had only about half that number. By the end of the 17th century,
however, London probably had 500,000 inhabitants.

Colonization of the New World

Worldwide division of labour
Although exploration and colonization had originally been carried out in order to secure exotic
and expensive spices, these products had little direct influence upon the organization of work in
Europe; even the enormous trade in semitropical items such as sugar and coffee had little
effect. However, wheat, wool, and meat from the temperate areas ultimately brought about an
international division of labour, with the New World colonies furnishing agricultural produce to
the manufacturing countries of Europe. (See comparative advantage.) In the 20th and 21st
centuries the underdeveloped countries of the tropics supplied agricultural and industrial raw
materials to developed areas, yet the dominant agricultural exporters were some of the most-
developed countries, such as the United States and Canada.

Slavery
While slavery has been evident in cultures throughout human history, its use by Europeans in
their colonization of the New World imposed radical changes on the organization of work.
Colonial slavery was linked with sugar production in Brazil and the West Indies and later with
cotton in southern North America.

Cultivation of sugarcane, especially its harvesting, required heavy manual labour. Harvested
cane was sent to a mill for grinding within a few hours after cutting; this necessitated
establishment of a plantation system in which the workers would be housed close to the fields
and the sugar mill. The requirements of sugar planters brought about the introduction of
agricultural slavery to the Western Hemisphere. It began as early as 1518, when the Spanish
government granted a license to import some 4,000 African slaves into the Spanish colonies.
The plantation system and the consequent demand for African slaves spread during the next
two centuries throughout the sugar-growing areas, including the British West Indies. Indeed,
the sugar industries of the British islands of the West Indies were so profitable that it made
more economic sense to devote nearly all the land to the cultivation and exporting of sugarcane
while importing other foods. Because of this dependence on imported foods, the islands were
not self-sufficient.

In the temperate zone, where sugar production was not possible, slaves were little used except
in tobacco-growing areas. The Puritan communities in New England engaged in small family
farming, while the Southern colonies employed indentured servants (white labourers who
agreed to work a number of years for some person who had paid their passage to the New
World).

Eli Whitney’s invention of the cotton gin in 1793 made cotton cheap enough to use as a staple
for textile production. As a result, slavery and the plantation system became fixtures in the
American South. While slaves were employed chiefly as cotton-field labourers, they also worked
as craftsmen, factory hands, and domestic servants, creating, in other words, a division of
labour on the plantation. The regional specialization in production led to sectional economic
and political differences and ultimately to the American Civil War and to the freeing of the
slaves.

Organization Of Work In The Industrial Age

The coming of mass production
Mass production is the name given to the method of producing goods in large quantities at
relatively low cost per unit. The mass production process itself is characterized by high volume,
a highly organized flow of materials through various stages of manufacturing, careful
supervision of quality standards, and precise division of labour. Mass production cannot exist
without mass consumption. Before the expansion of retailing, the only large-scale demand for
standardized, uniform products came from military organizations. As a result, the experiments
that led to mass production were first performed under the aegis of the military.

Machine tools and interchangeable parts

Advances in mass production could not be made without the development of the machine-tool
industry—that is, the fabrication of machinery that could make machines. Though some basic
devices such as the woodworking lathe had existed for centuries, their evolution into industrial
machine tools capable of cutting and shaping hard metals to precise tolerances was brought
about by a series of 19th-century innovators, first in Britain and later in the United States. With
precision equipment, large numbers of identical parts could be produced by a small workforce
at low costs.

The system of manufacture involving production of many identical parts and their assembly into
finished products came to be called the American System, because it achieved its fullest
maturity in the United States. Although Eli Whitney was credited with this development, his
ideas had appeared earlier in Sweden, France, and Britain and were being practiced in arms
factories in the United States. During the years 1802–08, for example, the French engineer Marc
Brunel, while working for the British Admiralty in the Portsmouth Dockyard, devised an efficient
process for producing wooden pulley blocks. Ten men, in place of 110 needed previously, were
able to make 160,000 pulley blocks per year. British manufacturers, however, ignored Brunel’s
ideas, and it was not until London’s Crystal Palace exhibition of 1851 that British engineers,
viewing exhibits of machines used in the United States to produce interchangeable parts, began
to apply the system. By the third quarter of the 19th century, the American System was
employed in making small arms, clocks, textile machinery, sewing machines, and a host of other
industrial products.

The assembly line

Though prototypes of the assembly line can be traced to antiquity, the true ancestor of this
industrial technique could be found in the 19th-century meat-processing industry in Cincinnati,
Ohio, and in Chicago, where overhead trolleys conveyed carcasses from worker to worker. When
these trolleys were connected with chains and power was used to move the carcasses past the
workers at a steady pace, they formed a true assembly line (or, in effect, a “disassembly” line in
the case of meat cutting). Stationary workers concentrated on one task and performed it at a
pace dictated by the machine, thereby minimizing unnecessary movement and dramatically
increasing productivity.

Drawing upon examples from the meatpacking industry, the American automobile
manufacturer Henry Ford designed an assembly line that began operation in 1913. This
innovation reduced manufacturing time for magneto flywheels from 20 minutes to 5 minutes.
Ford next applied the technique to chassis assembly. Under the old system, by which parts were
carried to a stationary assembly point, 12 1/2 man-hours were required for each chassis. Using
a rope to pull the chassis past stockpiles of components, Ford cut labour time to 6 man-hours.
With improvements—a chain drive to power assembly-line movement, stationary locations for
the workmen, and workstations designed for convenience and comfort—chassis assembly time
fell to 93 man-minutes by the end of April 1914. Ford’s methods drastically reduced the price of
a private automobile, bringing it within the reach of the growing middle class in the United
States.

Ford’s accomplishments forced both his competitors and his parts suppliers to imitate his
technique. As the assembly line spread through American industry, it brought dramatic
productivity gains but also caused skilled workers to be replaced with low-cost unskilled labour.
The pace of the assembly line was dictated by machines, meaning that plant owners were
tempted to accelerate the machines, forcing the workers to keep up. Such speedups became a
serious point of contention between labour and management. Furthermore, the dull, repetitive
nature of many assembly-line jobs bored employees, reducing their output.

Effects on the organization of work

The development of mass production transformed the organization of work in three important
ways. First, tasks were minutely subdivided and performed by unskilled or semiskilled workers,
because much of the skill was built into the machine. Second, growth in the size of
manufacturing concerns necessitated the formation of a hierarchy of supervisors and managers.
Third, the increasing complexity of operations encouraged employment of managerial-level
employees who specialized in such areas as accounting, engineering, research and
development, human resources, information technology, distribution, marketing, and sales.

Mass production also heightened the trend toward an international division of labour. The large
scale of the new factories often made it economical to import raw materials from one country
and produce them in another. At the same time, the saturation of domestic markets led to a
search for customers overseas. Thus, some countries became exporters of raw materials and
importers of finished goods, while others did the reverse. In the 1950s and ’60s some
predominantly agricultural countries (particularly in Asia and South America) began to
manufacture goods. Because of the low skill levels required for assembly-line tasks, residents of
any background could work in the new manufacturing sector. Standards of living in developing
countries were so low that wages could be kept below those of the industrialized countries. This
made the entire production process less expensive. Many large manufacturers in the United
States and elsewhere therefore began outsourcing—that is, having parts made or whole
products assembled in developing countries. Consequently, developments in these countries
have changed the face of the world economic community.

Industrial farming and services

Agriculture
The tasks involved in running a farm change with the cyclical nature of the cultivation and
harvest seasons. The tasks vary greatly for different crops and depend also upon the degree of
mechanization. Starting in the 19th century, agricultural work underwent a transformation
comparable to the change from handicraft to industrial mass production. At the beginning of
that century, farming was primarily a family enterprise that rested upon age-old techniques and
organization of work. Despite some technological innovations, such as the plow and seed drill,
output was relatively small. In the late 19th and especially in the 20th century, output per
farmer increased rapidly until, in the most technologically advanced countries, a small minority
of farmers supplied entire populations with food. These changes stemmed from a series of
advances such as improved power sources, mechanical devices such as the reaper and combine,
a scientific approach to plant and animal breeding, better food processing and preservation,
more-effective fertilizers and pesticides, and application of industrial management techniques
to agriculture.

Factory farms
One of the more-comprehensive examples of agricultural “factory” production is seen in the
poultry industry in the United States. A computerized feed bin mixes the feed and delivers it
automatically to the cages. Water is delivered automatically, and waste is removed by
mechanical means. When a chicken reaches the correct weight for processing, the slaughtering
and packaging are performed on an assembly-line basis. Application of these techniques has
sharply reduced the cost per pound of chicken, and a form of protein that was once a luxury has
become a staple item of diet. Similar methods are used to raise veal calves and other meat-
producing animals. Capital investment in such factory farms is high, meaning that production is
backed by giant companies.

Migrant labour
The industrialization of agriculture meant that the small farm was being replaced by larger
units, and this had profound consequences for agricultural labour. In the small-scale enterprise
that had prevailed since antiquity, the farm family with perhaps a few hired hands had done all
the work of planting, tending, and harvesting the crop, with neighbours helping each other
during peak periods such as the harvest. But the advent of industrialization drew workers from
the farms to the cities, and the increase in mechanization required fewer farm labourers on a
year-round basis. There was still need, however, for many hands during planting and harvesting,
especially for fruit and vegetable crops that matured at the same time and still required hand
harvesting.

Further, mechanization of agricultural processes has reduced some demand for migrant labour.
In the United States, for instance, the harvesting of wheat and cotton, which required the work
of many migrants before World War II, is now largely mechanized and easily handled by regular
farm employees. In mature economies migrant labour contributes little to total agricultural
output and only a negligible amount to nonagricultural output. Nevertheless, the availability of
migrant workers at the right time and place can be crucial, because, without them, large crop
losses may occur.

In the United States the need for seasonal farm workers has been met by migrant workers,
largely from Mexico and Latin American and Caribbean countries, although some native-born
Americans continue to follow the harvesting season as it moves from south to north. The
employment of these seasonal workers raises a number of social, political, and economic
problems. Migrants are typically paid low wages with no fringe benefits. Their living and
working conditions remain far below standard. In spite of this, they often look to migrant farm
labour as a means of escaping the worse conditions of their native countries.

State-organized farming
Agricultural mass production takes many forms. In the former Soviet Union sovkhozy, or state
agricultural farms, were owned collectively (that is, by the government). Farmers were, in effect,
state employees, but the organization of work resembled that of the West. Soviet collective
farms were in theory cooperative associations of farmers who combined their land and capital,
sharing proceeds in common. Each family on a collective farm, however, was permitted to own a
small plot of land, so that modern and traditional work organization existed side by side.

Although the Soviets at first prided themselves on their communal organization of agriculture, it
became evident that the system was not meeting productivity goals. Despite its fertile soil, the
Soviet Union was forced to import agricultural staples such as wheat from countries whose
agricultural systems were based on capitalism. Most of the fruits and vegetables consumed in
the U.S.S.R. came from the small private plots of collective farmers, who, being allowed to grow
produce for their own profit, had greater incentives to bring more foodstuffs to the market. By
comparison, the government-set prices and production quotas on the collective farms
diminished such incentives.
Acknowledging the productive capacity of private initiative, the Soviet government in the 1980s
began to loosen the constraints of collective agriculture. In 1989, individual farmers were given
the opportunity to lease land and equipment for 50 years and more. The lessee could decide
what to produce and at what price to sell it, and, upon his decease, his children could “inherit”
the leased property. With the demise of the Soviet Union in 1989, agriculture in Russia and in
the former Soviet states became increasingly privatized. Because so much of Russia’s
agricultural land is still held collectively, agricultural productivity is far below the standards of
most other countries.

The situation in the People’s Republic of China initially paralleled that in the Soviet Union. Mass
collectivization took place during Mao’s Great Leap Forward of 1958–60. The resulting
disorganization of the agricultural system led to a famine that is thought to have caused the
deaths of 20–30 million people. Productivity surged during the 1980s and ’90s, when peasants
were allowed to own or lease land and to market their own agricultural products. This
contributed to a rise in the standard of living in rural areas.

Services
For most of recorded history, the vast majority of the world’s population was engaged in
farming. Beginning in the 19th century, industrial employment took primacy over agricultural
work in many countries. By the 21st century the service sector had come to represent the
fastest-growing area of the workforce in the world’s most-advanced economies. In the United
States, for example, the number of people engaged in service occupations in the 1950s already
exceeded the number of those employed in industry, and the proportion increased thereafter.

Work in the service sector is marked by diversity. Jobs run the gamut from fast-food waiters to
maîtres d’hôtel, from office clerks to advertising executives, from kindergarten teachers to
university professors, and from nurses’ aides to surgeons. Also representing the service industry
are janitors, business consultants, truck drivers, financiers, and government employees ranging
from street sweepers and garbage collectors to legislators and heads of government.

Employment trends and job conditions changed for service workers throughout the 20th
century. For example, the number of domestic servants declined drastically, with full-time live-in
domestic help almost disappearing. On the other hand, the number of government employees
grew dramatically as government entities, from local to regional to national, took on new tasks.

Sophistication of mass production

Scientific management
American industrial engineer Frederick W. Taylor (1856–1915) led the development of an
entirely new discipline—that of industrial engineering or scientific management. In this
approach, the managerial functions of planning and coordination were applied throughout the
productive process.
Taylor believed that a factory manager’s primary goals were to determine the best way for the
worker to do the job, to provide the proper tools and training, and to provide incentives for
good performance. Taylor broke down each job into its constituent motions, analyzed these
motions to determine which were essential, and timed the workers with a stopwatch. With
superfluous motion eliminated, the worker, following a machinelike routine, became much
more productive. In some cases Taylor recommended a further division of labour, delegating
some tasks, such as sharpening tools, to specialists.

These studies were complemented by two of Taylor’s contemporaries in the United States,
Frank B. Gilbreth and Lillian E. Gilbreth, whom many management engineers credit with the
invention of motion studies. In 1909 the Gilbreths, studying the task of bricklaying, concluded
that motion was wasted each time a worker reached down to pick up a brick. They devised an
adjustable scaffold that eliminated stooping and sped the bricklaying process from 120 bricks
per hour to 350. Industrial engineering was eventually applied to all elements of factory
operation—layout, materials handling, and product design, as well as labour operations.

Taylor regarded his movement as “scientific” because of the scientific principles and
measurement he applied to the work process. Previously, advances in manufacturing had been
made by applying scientific principles to machines. This scientific approach, however, neglected
the human element, so that Taylor in effect conceptualized the work process not as a
relationship between worker and machine but as a relationship between two machines.

Scientific management theorists assumed that workers desired to be used efficiently, to perform
their work with a minimum of effort, and to receive more money. They also took for granted
that workers would submit to the standardization of physical movements and thought
processes. The procedures developed through scientific management, however, ignored human
feelings and motivations, leaving the worker dissatisfied with the job. Furthermore, some
employers used the time-and-motion studies as a means of speeding up the production line and
raising productivity levels while still keeping wages down.

Industrial psychology
Unions became the mouthpiece for those who opposed some of the consequences of scientific
management. This was especially true in the decade after 1910, when the principles of scientific
management were being applied wholesale in the United States. Though the unions approved
of more-efficient production arising from better machinery and management, they condemned
the speedup practice and complained in particular that Taylorism deprived workers of a voice
regarding the conditions and functions of their work. Complaints were also made that the
system caused irritability and fatigue along with physiological and neurological damage among
workers. Quality and productivity suffered. Industrial engineers then faced the problem of
motivating the worker so that the combination of human labour and machine technology would
achieve its fullest potential. A partial solution came from the social sciences through the
development of industrial psychology.
The major premise of this new discipline was that mass production methods affect the worker
both in the immediate job environment and in relations with fellow workers and supervisors.
The first important discoveries in the social context of mass production technology resulted
from experiments made by the American social scientist Elton Mayo between 1927 and 1932 at
the Hawthorne plant of the Western Electric Company, in Cicero, Ill. Mayo, who earlier had
studied problems of physical fatigue among textile workers in a Philadelphia plant, was called in
to the Hawthorne works, where industrial engineers were testing the possibility that changes in
lighting could affect productivity. The investigators chose two groups of employees working
under similar conditions to produce the same part; the intensity of the light would vary for the
test group but would be kept constant for the control group. To Mayo’s surprise, the output of
both groups rose. Even when the researchers told one group that the light was going to be
changed and then did not change it, the workers expressed satisfaction, saying that they liked
the “increased” illumination, and productivity continued to rise.

Mayo saw that the significant variable was not physiological but psychological. Productivity rose
when more attention was paid to the workers. A second series of experiments involved the
assembly of telephone relays. Test and control groups were subjected to changes in wages, rest
periods, workweeks, temperature, humidity, and other factors. Again output continued to
increase no matter how physical conditions were varied; even when conditions were returned
to what they had been before, productivity remained 25 percent higher than its original value.
Mayo concluded that the reason for this lay in the attitudes of the workers toward their jobs
and toward the company. By asking their cooperation in the test, the investigators had
stimulated a new attitude among the employees, who now felt themselves part of an important
group whose help and advice were being sought by the company. This phenomenon came to be
known as the Hawthorne effect.

Following Mayo’s findings, industrial engineers and sociologists have recommended other
means of improving motivation and productivity. These include job alternation (to relieve
boredom), job enlargement (arranging for workers to perform several tasks rather than a single
operation), and job enrichment (redesigning the job to make it more challenging).

Mayo’s work broadened scientific management by drawing the new behavioral sciences, such as
social psychology, into questions concerning work and labour-management relationships. It
encouraged the development of human-factors engineering and ergonomics, disciplines that
attempt to design “user-friendly” equipment. For example, the new engineers try to
accommodate human physiology by designing equipment that can be operated at a comfortable
work level, with minimum strain and with controls that are easy to reach, see, and manipulate.

Automation
In its ideal form, automation implies the elimination of all manual labour through the use of
automatic controls that ensure accuracy and quality. Although perfect automation has never
been achieved, in its more-limited form it has caused alterations in the patterns of employment.
Coined in the 1940s at the Ford Motor Company, the term automation was applied to the
automatic handling of parts in metalworking processes. The concept acquired broader meaning
with the development of cybernetics by American mathematician Norbert Wiener. Through
cybernetics, Wiener anticipated the application of computers to manufacturing situations. He
caused alarm during the 1950s and ’60s by suggesting, erroneously, that automatic machinery
would lead to mass unemployment. But automation was not introduced as rapidly as foreseen,
and other economic factors have created new opportunities in the labour market.

Automation evolved from three interrelated trends in technology: the development of powered
machinery for production operations, the introduction of powered equipment to move
materials and workpieces during the manufacturing process, and the perfecting of control
systems to regulate production, handling, and distribution.

Devices to move materials from one workstation to the next included conveyor-belt systems,
monorail trolleys, and various pulley arrangements. The transfer machine, a landmark in
progress toward full automation, moves the workpieces to the next workstation and accurately
positions them for the next machine tool. It cuts labour costs and improves quality by ensuring
uniformity and precision. The first known transfer machine was built by an American firm, the
Waltham Watch Company, in 1888; it fed parts to several lathes mounted on a single base. By
the mid-20th century, transfer machines were widely employed in the automotive industry,
appliance manufacturing, electrical-parts production, and many other metalworking industries.

Automatic controls revolutionized all aspects of the production process. Starting in the 19th
century, the simple cam could automatically adjust the position of a lever or machine element.
But cam devices were limited in speed, size, and sensitivity. True automatic control can occur
only when the machine is sensitive enough to adjust to unpredictably varying conditions. This
requirement demands instant responses to feedback—something a computer can perform in a
fraction of a second.

Whereas industrialization made possible the mass production of identical parts for mass
markets, the computer allowed for custom-made small-batch production. During the 1980s and
’90s, American firms made significant investments in information-processing equipment. These
developments allowed American manufacturers to concentrate on “niche” production—that is,
supplying a limited segment of the market with a specialized product and responding speedily
to changes in market demand. On the automobile assembly line, niche production enables
many cars containing different options to be fabricated on the same assembly line, with
computers monitoring a system that ensures the proper items will go into each separate car.

Further developments in automation created two new fields: computer-aided design (CAD) and
computer-aided manufacturing (CAM), often linked as codisciplines under the title CAD/CAM. In
a sense, CAD/CAM allows the mass production system to manufacture customized “handmade”
articles. The machinery can be adapted to a particular product through computer programming,
enabling work on small batches to achieve many of the economies previously available only
through mass production of identical objects. Computer-aided design itself makes possible the
testing of production methods and the design of the product by running tests (of such factors as
ability to withstand stress, for example) through the computer. After testing, the product design
or the process can be modified without going to the expense and time required for building
actual prototype models. See economy of scale.

Automation not only gives flexibility to production but also can cut down costly lead times
confronted when changing from one production model to another, and it can control
inventories to provide a continuous flow of materials without expensive storage requirements
or investment in spare parts. Such efficiencies lower production costs and help explain the
growing strength in world markets of the Japanese, who first introduced the practice.
Automation has also fostered the development of systems engineering, operations research,
and linear programming.

Automation has not yet reached the level of completely robotized production. The first
generation of industrial robots could perform only simple tasks, such as welding, for they
became confused by slight differences in the objects on which they worked. To overcome that
difficulty, computer scientists and engineers began developing robots with keener sensitivity,
thereby enlarging their capabilities. Although progress has been made, it is clear that human
beings must be available to back up the robots and maintain their productivity.

The automated workplace

Effect on skilled labour
Robotic machines can perform certain unpleasant and dangerous jobs such as welding or
painting. They can handle loads of up to a ton or more and work efficiently in temperatures
ranging from near freezing to uncomfortably hot. In many cases automation has eliminated
physical and mental drudgery from human labour and has allowed the worker to change from a
machine operator to a machine supervisor.

Automation also boosts productivity (as measured in output per man-hour), even as it reduces
the number of workers required for certain tasks. In the 1950s and ’60s, for example,
productivity increased while employment decreased in the chemical, steel, meatpacking, and
other industries in developed countries. Except in the rust belt regions (older industrial areas in
Britain and the United States), no mass unemployment has ever materialized. Instead, as certain
jobs and skills became obsolete, automation and other new technologies created new jobs that
call for different skills.

Automation has brought about changes in the worker’s relationship to the job. Here the
differences between labour practices in different countries prove instructive. The scientific
management principle of breaking work down into small, repetitive tasks was based perhaps
upon the notion that the worker does not think on the job. For example, when American
factories became mechanized, the workers were not permitted to stop the assembly line if
anything went amiss; that was the task of supervisory personnel. This led to low productivity
and poor quality control. By comparison, workers in Japanese factories were allowed to stop the
process when something went wrong. Workers were assigned to “quality circles,” groups that
could give workers a say in the performance of their tasks and in the process of problem solving.
This approach represents an application of Mayo’s Hawthorne effect—something Japanese
managers had learned from American management consultants such as W. Edwards Deming. By
encouraging workers to participate in the quality control efforts, the management approach
improved both productivity and quality.

A similar way of enhancing quality and work performance is what is known as group assembly,
which started in Swedish automobile plants and was also adopted by the Japanese and then by
the Americans. With this system a group of workers is responsible for the entire product (as
opposed to individual workers who perform only one small task). If something goes wrong on
an assembly line, any worker can push a button and hold things in place until the problem is
resolved.

As this approach is increasingly employed throughout the world, it brings major changes to the
labour force and to labour-management relations. First, it allows smaller numbers of more
highly skilled workers, operating sophisticated computer-controlled equipment, to replace
thousands of unskilled workers in assembly-line plants. As a consequence, the highly skilled
worker, whose talents had been lost on the old-fashioned assembly line, has again become
indispensable. The proliferation of automated machinery and control systems has increased the
demand for skilled labourers and knowledgeable technicians who can operate the newer
devices. As a result, automation may be seen as improving efficiency and expanding production
while relieving drudgery and increasing earnings—precisely the aims of Frederick W. Taylor at
the turn of the 20th century.

The office workplace

Office automation represents a further mechanization of office work, a process that began with
the introduction of the typewriter and the adding machine in the 19th century. The introduction
of computers also affected the organization of work in the information sector of the economy.
Just as automated machinery has done away with the jobs of many machine operators,
integrated information-processing systems have eliminated many clerical tasks. For the
production operation, automation provides an exact control over the inventory of raw materials,
parts, and finished goods. Applied to billing operations in the office, it often can drastically
reduce accounting costs.

The combination of computers and telecommunications led some to believe that office workers
would perform their required functions without leaving their homes, as the computer terminal
would take the place of their usual paperwork. Such predictions for “telecommuting” generally
have not materialized, however. Social psychologists explain this by pointing out the social
aspect of the work process, in the office as well as on the assembly line. Workers are, after all,
social beings who benefit from interactions with their fellow employees.
Nevertheless, office automation affects worker-manager relationships in a number of ways. It
allows middle-level employees a means of providing company executives with reports of
production, costs, and inventory. This removes the dependence on a few subordinates who had
traditionally supplied such information. Automation also creates ways to monitor each office
worker’s efficiency: through computerized information, managers can, for example, count the
number of times per hour that a typist strikes a letter on the keyboard. Managers can also
ascertain the number, times, and nature of a worker’s telephone calls, monitor e-mail, or track
the number and nature of Web sites an employee accesses.

Women in the workforce

For most of written history, agriculture was the chief human occupation, and heavy physical
labour was not confined to men. Women performed physically demanding chores such as
grinding grain by hand in a stone quern, drawing and carrying water, gathering wood, and
churning milk to make butter. Generally, any respite from these tasks would occur only when a
woman gave birth.

The Industrial Revolution changed the work situation for both men and women. Whereas the
hearth and home had been the centre of production and family life, industrialization changed
the locus of work from home to factory. The role of women in the family workforce did not
change overnight, however, for at first many families worked together in factories as teams.

Not until the mid-19th century did the role of the male as the “good provider” emerge, with
women taking over most household and domestic tasks. This transition may have stemmed
from a growing humanitarian protest against the harsh treatment of women and children in the
early factory system. Legislation—most notably in Britain—raised the minimum age for child
labour in factories, set limits on the working hours of women and children, and barred them
from certain dangerous and heavy occupations. Thus, women engaged primarily in domestic
tasks such as child care while the men went out to work. Being the sole wage earner in the
family reinforced the man’s traditional position as the head of the family.

The traditional role of the housewife (whose chief pursuits were motherhood and domesticity)
persisted throughout the 19th century and well into the 20th. The advent of electric power near
the close of the 19th century brought labour-saving devices such as washing machines and
vacuum cleaners into the home. Although they freed the housewife from some drudgery, these
innovations did little to lessen the amount of time she spent on household duties.

Social and economic developments were the critical agents that changed the nature of women’s
work. For example, the growth of public education increased the demand for more teachers,
and growing industrial and commercial enterprises required more office workers and
salespeople. Whereas men had previously performed teaching and clerical tasks, employers
found they could hire women for these occupations—at lower salaries. Differences in pay
between the sexes were based largely on the assumption that men had to be paid enough to
support a family. Moreover, most women who entered the workforce in the United States
before World War II were single and did not have families to support; hence, they could be paid
lower wages. This inequality in men’s and women’s pay scales, even for equal work, still exists.

Many working women performed tasks closely related to their traditional household work.
When clothes were less often made at home but purchased ready-made at stores, for example,
women were hired as seamstresses in the clothing industry. Even after national emergencies
such as the World Wars, during which women were encouraged to take manufacturing jobs to
replace the men who were in military service, women returned to housekeeping or to
traditionally female occupations such as office work and nursing.

In the 1970s married women began entering the labour force in great numbers, and the strict
segregation of women into certain occupations began to lessen somewhat as new opportunities
arose for female workers in traditionally male occupations. New technology has meant that
many tasks that once required heavy physical exertion, and hence were restricted to men, can
now be performed simply by pushing buttons. Operating a bulldozer, for instance, does not
need muscle power so much as alertness, judgment, and coordination—qualities as plentiful in
women as in men. Nevertheless, the entrance of women into occupations formerly the province
of men proved to be slower than expected. This persistent occupational segregation by sex is
largely responsible for sizable differences in rates of pay that still exist. It would appear that,
although rapid technological progress has enabled women in highly industrialized countries to
cast off certain traditional roles, technological determinism—or technological rationality—does
not always prevail over cultural views and social practices inherited from the past.

With the onset of the Industrial Revolution and the development of powered machinery during
the 18th and 19th centuries, much onerous physical effort was gradually removed from work in
factories and fields. Work was still regarded, however, as something separate from pleasure.
The dichotomy between work and play persists even in today’s highly industrialized society.

Most recently, the development of automated work devices and processes, the prevalence of
computers, and the growth of the service industry have led some to speak of a “postindustrial
society.” This vision has not prevailed. In fact, industrial production has spread to developing
countries, meaning that economic and political questions of working-class and managerial
relationships have altered on an international front, affecting political relationships on a global
scale. (See globalization.) Furthermore, new demands have been placed on educational systems
in the developing countries as they attempt to train their workers for industrial production.
Similarly, new demands have been placed on the educational systems of the developed
countries as the older methods of organizing production, such as the assembly line, are being
taken over by “smart” machines.

History of Organizations
The history of organizations describes the general history of the rise of the organization.

Since earliest times humanity has endeavoured to develop the most appropriate systems of
organization to meet the challenges of a particular era. Inevitably the systems of organization
that developed were reflections of the wider values, tradition and general organization of
society at that time, moulded by the necessity of withstanding threat and seeking to innovate
whilst maximising benefits from existing resources. Human development has continually
necessitated a corollary of human and organizational development designed to maximize
effectiveness. This progression is indicative of a civilizing process that has continually asked
humanity to reassess its relationship with itself and to increasingly value the welfare of both the
individual and wider society as a whole. The symbiotic relationship between strategic leadership
and organizational structure necessary to success can be traced back to the beginnings of
western civilization. Indeed, the very term strategic owes its etymology to the ancient Greek
words for 'army' or a 'large body' and a 'leader'. In ancient Greece the 'Strategikos' was the
leader of the army.

History of Community Organizing in the Philippines

Marcos' declaration of martial rule in 1972 altered the terrain for social movements. All
progressive groups were subjected to repression while some individuals were either eliminated
or arrested by the military. During the early stages of martial rule, all attempts at organizing
ground to a halt, except for the Zone One Tondo Organization (ZOTO).

The repressive situation led a large number of activists to go underground and wage armed
struggle against the Martial Law regime. Some organizations like the FFF were co-opted by the
regime. Others simply laid low.

Church-based programs which functioned as non-government organizations (NGOs) were the

first to engage in organizing despite martial law. These include the Urban and Rural Missionaries
of the Philippines, Task Force Detainees of the Philippines, Episcopal Commission on Tribal
Filipinos, Share and Care Apostolate for Poor Settlers, and PEACE, among others.

Soon, however, NGOs resumed grassroots activities. The Philippine Ecumenical Council for
Community Organization (PECCO) continued with the refinement and implementation of the
community organizing (CO) approach all over the country, in combination with the Marxist
structural analysis and the thinking of Saul Alinsky and Paolo Freire. Politicized NGOs used the
structural analysis approach in conscientizing and mobilizing, while the Basic Christian
Community framework was developed by the progressive church as a response to the needs of
the time. Programs like education and health, economic enterprises and cooperative
development were used as entry points for organizing to avoid getting in trouble with the
dictatorship.

Various political formations saw the need to set up NGOs or influence the programs and
projects of existing ones in order to pursue their own interests. On the positive side, it cannot
be denied that the most effective NGOs of the period were those whose leaders and staff had
ideological leanings. On the other side, internal ideological struggles wracked some NGOs as
ideological debates and rivalries within the mass movement spilled over to the social
development community. PECCO, for one, split in 1977 because of ideological differences
among its elements, leading to the formation of two separate organizations the Community
Organization of the Philippines Enterprise (COPE) and the People's Ecumenical Action for
Community Empowerment (PEACE).

Developmental institutions eventually saw the need for more coordinated activities among
themselves. In December 1972, ten foundations came together and formed the Association of
Foundations (AF). The association expanded to 40 members by 1976. More progressive groups
formed the Philippine Alliance for Rural and Urban Development (PARUD), a consortium of POs
and NGOs with more or less the same ideological bent.

Repression continued, but opposition to the Martial Law regime became more consolidated.
There was widespread unrest as the majority of the people remained mired in poverty; wages
were kept at very low levels and human rights violations increased. When Martial Law was
paperlifted in 1981, organizing efforts multiplied and innovative approaches and tools were
developed and replicated all over the country. NGOs were instrumental in the development of
the organized mass movement.

Human rights as an advocacy issue was effectively raised by pioneers in this field such as the
Task Force Detainees of the Philippines and lawyers' groups like Free Legal Assistance Group
(FLAG) and MABINI.

International campaigns against weapons of mass destruction, environmental conservation and

sustainable development influenced the Philippine social development terrain. NGOs with these
issues as primary concerns were established during the period. The women's movement also
began to flex its strength locally.

NGOs recognized the need to band together into networks for purposes of linkaging,
synchronization of activities, and cooperative exchanges of experiences and resources.
Networks formed during this period include the Philippine Partnership for the Development of
Human Resources in the Rural Areas (PhilDHRRA) and the Council for People's Development
(CPD). Regional NGO networks such as Kahayag Foundation in Mindanao and the Consortium of
Development Programs in the Cordillera were formed also.

Cooperatives went through a second wave of growth during this period. The government
formed the Cooperative Union of the Philippines in 1979 and required all cooperatives to
register. Independent cooperatives refused to yield and instead formed the National
Confederation of Cooperatives (NATCCO) (ACSPPA/PCHRD, 1995).
The assassination of Benigno Aquino in 1983 led to widespread street protests which became
known as the parliament of the streets. It attracted a cross section of society including
previously unpoliticized sectors, such as business and the institutional Church.

There were efforts to forge unity among the anti-dictatorship forces. Several coalitions were
formed: Justice for Aquino, Justice for All (JAJA), Kongreso ng Mamamayang Pilipino (KOMPIL),
Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (BAYAN) and others. But these organizations did not last long due
to ideological differences among its members.

Major organizations among the ranks of the peasant, fisherfolks and indigenous peoples were
organized for the purpose of advancing sectoral agendas.

Other venues of development work were explored further. Programs that focused on livelihood,
gender equality, ecology, alternative legal assistance, support for migrant workers and others
were implemented.

One of the issues that divided the social development sector during this period was the
question of whether to participate in the 1986 snap presidential election. The mainstream
national democratic movement and the NGOs and POs under its influence opted to boycott the
election, while the other left-of-center formations decided to participate, albeit critically.

During the First Quarter Storm of the seventies, CO was introduced through the Philippine
Ecumenical Council for Community Organization (PECCO). The group organized communities in
Tondo and established the Council of Tondo Foreshore Community Organization which proved
to be an organization of leaders. Re-training was carried out to improve the organizing skills of
PECCO personnel. The Saul Alinsky method of conflict-confrontation developed in Chicago was
adapted to conditions in Tondo. As a result, the Zone One Tondo Organization (ZOTO) was born.
The program was replicated in other parts of the Philippines, including the rural areas and
usually introduced through Church structures. The Alinsky CO method was refined to include
reflection sessions, which were, in turn taken from Paulo Freire's Pedagogy of the Oppressed.

When Martial Law was declared, organizing efforts continued. During this time development
workers began pushing for people's participation and CO became the tool for achieving this.
Both international development groups and government began advocating and funding CO
programs. Thus, community organizing proliferated.

Even before PECCO adopted Alinsky's practice of community organizing, the progressive section
of the Catholic Church were already started organizing Basic Christian Communities (BCC) in
Mindanao with the proclamation of Vatican II. It soon spread to some parts of Luzon and
Visayas and the organizing was basically liturgical, employing Bible studies and other creative
forms of worship. But during the Martial Law period, the BCC became a means for witnessing
the Teachings and Example of Christ through socio-political work.

Reference:

http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/54a/063.html

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_organizations

https://www.britannica.com/topic/history-of-work-organization-648000/Women-in-the-
workforce