Taylorism Blog
Would workers in Australia, America or Europe accept the Taylorism in this form today?
Generally, the answer to that question would be "absolutely not." While there are situations where this might occur in a limited fashion, the emergence of union organizing rights and what not have empowered employees to a level that such antics by a company along the lines of what Ford was doing would not be accepted. The doubling in pay would be attractive but the conditions behind it would cause a revolt at some point. Indeed, Ford and all of the author domestic automakers are union ... although there are some foreign ones operating in the United States (e.g. Hyundai, Kia, etc.) that have dodged this by opening factories only in the southern (i.e. not pro-union) United States. Ford's doubling of the wages surely attracted people in great number but the conditions and pressures that the workers were subjected to, when it came to union talk in particular, would be outright illegal today and the NRLB (in the United States) and similar organizations in other Western countries would take much the same overall approach if things like that happened there. What Ford did in terms of efficiency cannot be condemned as output was maximized and this meant greater rewards to the company. While some reward trickled down to the employees, it came at a huge cost and overall employee conditions were at a level that would not be accepted today ... union or no union. There could and should be a balance between the expectations that are levied against employees and being reasonable. Ford was obviously entirely too far down the spectrum in that they were working employees entirely too hard and were quick to stomp out any efforts that threatened the flow they had established, whether that be the length of bathroom breaks, talk about unions or messing around in general. Keeping order and compliance is one thing but being dictator-esque is another thing entirely.
2. Consider the design of scripts for use in Call Centres, can you see Taylorism in that? Explain.
Absolutely...
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