Stories about factory work still apply. I feel this stuff every day at the school I work at.
In a zinc smelter in Pennsylvania, near Pittsburgh, a man was given a job which required pulling a series of switches that controlled the furnaces. He sat on a cot or bench in a small room and at regular intervals he had to get up to pull the switches along one wall. One day the foreman realized that although he had passed the controls room frequently, he had never seen the guy off the cot. He went in to investigate and found that he had rigged up a series of wires from the switches to the head of the cot which he could pull at the required time. The boss told him that it didn't look good for him to lay on his back all day, he'd have to take the wires down. If a higher-up saw the wires he'd have a fit. The wires were taken down. But not long afterward, the foreman noticed that once more the man never left the cot. He investigated again and found that he had wired the switches themselves, not the handles as before, and could throw the switches from his cot without any wires being strung around the room. The foreman threw up his hands and said, "If you could figure that out, then lay on your damn back all day." Machine Should Serve The Man
This is an extreme case, but only because the worker was able to keep some of the benefits. Every worker is always looking for ways to make the machine serve him. But he must spend his life fighting the fact that he has been placed in the factory to serve the machine or assembly line.
It isn't just helping his own job along that's involved. Production in a modern factory usually prohibits that. The worker can help himself only by helping his buddies. A job can be improved only by changing half a dozen operations. This is especially true on an assembly line. Improving production means a group of people cooperatively organizing the work. It can be done in no other way.
An auto worker said that the thing he hates most about his job is that the company has production so fouled up that he can't help his buddy. That's an opinion that's shared by workers everywhere.
The guy next to you on the line isn't feeling well, or he's got a hangover, or he's just feeling lazy. Or maybe he's having trouble with his tools. He starts to fall behind, moving up the line to keep up with his job. The first instinct you have is to give him a hand. You know the terrible pressure he's under. But you also know that helping him get out his production won't do him any good. He'll have the same job to do tomorrow. The company will get a few pieces they wouldn't otherwise have gotten. And you resent it. Everyone resents it.
In a shop with a strong union tradition on production standards no one would think of helping and they are bitter at not being able to help, In other shops a man might lend a hand and be just as bitter because only the company benefits from his human action.