Office workers and the crisis

italist employer, as yesterday's article emphasized, is inevitably to throw workers out of their jobs.

Some idea of the immediate reductions in staff possible were given by the Ministry of Labour publication 'Computers in Offices', published in 1965.

The report estimated that the number of jobs taken over by installation of automatic data processing (ADP) systems with computers up to January 1, 1964, was 51,000 (managers and supervisors 700. clerks 33,300, non-ADP operators 14,600, typists 2,400).

The same report puts the number of jobs created by ADP and computers at 18,500 (of which 3,090 were programmers and 13,325 were ADP machine operators.)

In many cases, because of the shortage of labour the jobs eliminated were unfilled vacancies and in other. cases the expansion of business that followed enabled other jobs to be found within the organization-but outside the sphere of the computer system.

The report sees the new systems as doing no more than helping towards the filling of situations vacant.

Future expansion of business, it concludes, will continue to mean plenty of jobs available.

These conclusions, often quoted by management consultants to prove that no danger of unemployment exists, can be faulted on number of counts:

By the report's own admission, the surplus workers were found jobs only in the non-computerized offices, very large at the time of the report, but a section that dwindles rapidly as more and more computers are installed. When 90 to 100 per cent of office work is computerized, where do the workers go then?

Forecasts of future developments by the 'experts' are nearly always made in a purely quantitative way; that is, by assuming that existing machines will be the same in ten years time, but that there will be more of them.

But so long as money is laid out for research, improvements in quality will constantly occur and in fact the present range of 'third generation' computers make those existing at the time of this report completely obsolete.

In many cases existing computers are used only as glorified addingmachines and run at nothing like full capacity, i.e. displace nowhere near the number of staff that maximum use would allow. Some computer firms are now devising courses to teach managements how to run their equipment at full capacity.

No account is taken of the use of O and M and iwork-study systems in offices ' which, if successful, would cut • back the number of workers note the PIB's 15 to 60 per cent quoted earlier).

From the rapid development of computers that has taken place, it might be thought that computer programming and associated work at least offer a chance of longterm job security. Various sources emphasize the shortage of staff in this direction and enthuse over 'careers' available in this field.

In fact, more and more computer research is being directed towards eliminating the skilled programmer altogether.

With the new 'software' technology, it is only necessary to type out a job specification in ordinary language, on a machine which itself changes the material to a form that the computer can use.

Also, further research is being conducted into data machines which respond to spoken instructions.

On this. basis, the skilled programmer is only a temporary product of the development of data - treatment systems.

The conclusion that all problems will be solved y continuing expansion of inustry is, at the very least, rishful thinking, but much lore likely a deliberate cover› of the real situation.

In the United States confalling production, *s and stock market prices 1 businessmen and econists to predict the inevit'ity of recession. In Europe, mpts to develop the Com1 Market prepare the way further attacks on the iking class.

The major build-up of food pluses (sugar, fruit, dairy PART TWO THE SECOND dealing with t le pli which could r nake in a very short time.

of work-study.

products, wheat, coarse grain) in Europe, North America and Australia deepens the crisis, while within the past year a tendency towards over-production and many consequent accusations of 'dumping' have occured over transformers, paper, fishing tackle, files for metalwork, rasps, filleted fish, washing machines, synthetic fibres, plastics, tea and shoes.

Even for the computer producers recent warnings have been sounded that many firms coming newly into computer making, by cutting the corners, could lead to 'surplus capacity' in the industry.

Far from the problems being solved by 'unlimited and conpint for capitalism is inevitabse world-wide recession and economic crisis.

Virtually all tasks, whether manual or non-manual, are capable to some extent of The introduction of computers in offices, says a report published in 1965, has taken over 51,000 office jobs.

being measured •.. the real issue therefore, in relation to non-manual workers, is not whether work can be measured, but what technique of measurement is appropriate for the particular job' (PIB report No. 123).

Work-study exists in two basic parts; motion-study and time-study.

Motion - study examines every movement made and method used to see if it can be simplified, shortened or eliminated altogether. This aims at (a) saving time by cutting out 'ineffective' motion.

(b) streamlining a job to prepare for timing.

Whereas at factory level the time and the motion methods are introduced jointly, in the office the motion-study is introduced first and in fact it is exactly that Organization and Methods system which we have already described.

In other words, the appearance of O and M consultants in an office is the first stage Ir at to of BERNARD FRANKS' article inned re-organization of offices thousands of clerks rer undant Today he deals with the impact in the introduction of time-and motion methods into the work being undertaken.

The main aim of time-study is to institute the actual process of speeding-up the worker. Stopwatches are used to find present times for all operations, then new, faster times are devised by eliminating all so-called ineffective time, idle time and excessive rest. What is left is called the standard time for the job.

The main timing techinques used in office work are: Activity sampling In this system a stopwatch is not used. Instead, a note is made of what the worker is doing at periodic intervals throughout the day. From these "samples', so' it is claimed, a picture can be built up of what amount of time. the worker spends on each task.

Ordinary time-study In this system a worker is timed with a stopwatch while doing a specific job; only movements directly connected with that job are timed. Mistakes, rest or 'abnormal' movements are left out.

In this way, each action is timed separately and these separate movements are known as elements of work.

For example, if out of 50 samples a clerk is noted down as doing nothing in ten, walking in 20 and writing in 20, the work-study department would deduce that she spends 40 per cent of the day working, 40 per cent transporting' and 20 percent idle.

At the same time, the observer writes down the 'rate' at which he considers the different elements are being carried out (tast, slow, etc.).

Following this, the elements are rated and then strung together, an extra fixed allowance is added for rest contingencies and this is the final time for the job.

The work-study people do not record the workers' rest periods because they are not interested in how much rest the operator actually needs.

They have their own lists of 'scientifically worked-out tables of how much rest should be allowed in any particular type of work.

A man bending down to pick up a heavy box and putting it on a table for example, might be timed in the following way:

Operation Bend down Grasp box Lift Put down on table Total During this operation the worker may have hesitated for a second to note the best way to grasp the box and rested for two seconds when the operation was complete.

These three seconds would not be recorded, so this task would be timed as eight seconds instead of the 11 seconds it really took.

Next, the elements are rated. In the bend-down movement the one second stands because in the opinion of the observer the worker moved at standard speed.

However in grasping the box he was apparently too slow, rating only 90 out of a 100. He should have taken one-tenth less time, i.e. nine-tenths of a second, for this movement.

Similarly in the lift movement he should have taken only 4.5 seconds. His put-down time was fast and 'normal' time would be 1.1 seconds. So total time for the job after rating, called the 'basic time', seconds = 7.5 seconds.

Allowing 10 per cent for contingencies and rest, the hnal standard time for the operation is made out to be 8.25 seconds, or a saving of 2.75 seconds on the actual time (11 seconds) to do the job. The equivalent for the entire day would be two hours saving on an eight-hour day. Pre-determined time Time I second 5 seconds 8 seconds Group capacity assessment motionUnder this system, no times are taken. The worker is simply watched at work and every motion is noted.

The work-study people then put down a time for each action which they take from a standard manual of times for movements. When added up these give the final time for the job.

The PMTS most commonly Rate per cent used is Methods - Time Measurement (MTM).

This was devised in the USA. The standard times were made up after a frame-byframe examination of films of workers carrying out different actions.

The times in the manual cover body motions, eye motions and various twist and cranking movements of the arm, hand and fingers.

A variation of this system specially devised for office work is called Master Clerical Data (MCD).

As work in office • is closely inter-related and w orkers act as a team, a group instead of the individual may be examined.

Also, instead of work elements, the actual work processes are timed as a unit, e.g. type and dispatch a letter and file a copy.

The new standard times are the times in which the group must carry out the various operations. This system was devised in the USA in 1958 and is usually introduced in three phases.

It is significant that the specialist magazine WorkStudy' outlines step six of phase one of this system thus:

'Any surplus labour is handled by a predetermined policy, e.g.

natural wastage, transfer immediate dismissal.

Variations of these four systems may appear under different titles and it is becoming increasingly popular to name work-study systems after the firm that is attempting to introduce them, so as to imply that they are 'personalized' to fit the needs of the workers involved.

The reason why so many work-study systems exist is simple.

As soon as one system is exposed as a fraud by some section of workers, the consultants promptly cook up another one which, they claim, leaves out all the 'unpleasant' parts of the previous method.

For example, PMTS is being pushed to the fore as a system which • avoids the 'degrading' use of the stopwatch and which cuts out the 'nonscientific' method of rating by opinion.

Along with the systems outlined are introduced a variety of flexibility and interchangeability proposals aimed breaking down conventional demarcation between jobs (typist, filing clerk, telephone operator etc.) and requiring instead that all workers do any work as instructed by manageAlready job-evaluation being tried out in some offices associated | with industrial plants. This system puts all workers concerned into a number of pay grades and requires that they do any work within their grade.

Also, the enormous outlay on computer systems make it imperative for the employers to run them for at least 20 hours a day.

For this reason shift-work is being increasingly demanded by managements.

All office staffs can be sure that the ultimate aim of all these systems will be the introduction of Measured-Day Work into the office.

This system, over which major struggles are occuring throughout industry, demands a tremendously high level of working tied to a fixed wage reflecting neither output nor cost of living.

The government and the employers are relying on a combination of the outlined measures to strengthen the employers' ability to impose a new strict working discipline.

While any shortage of staff exists, employers can do little to enforce faster working, but with the rapid drop in the Far from the economy expanding and providing more jobs for office workers, as a Prices and Incomes Board report suggests, the car industry, like many others, runs into crises resulting , in over-production and stockpiling.

number of unfilled posts-as well as in the number of workers employed-the managements hope to move into a much stronger position.

As one computer expert explains:

'In commercial and industrial life, the major significance of the computer system is that it permits effective control to be regained by management' ('Computers and the Changing World', by, John Hargreaves, senior member of IBM's computer staff).

At the same time as differences between office and factory work are breaking down -the references to modern clerical work as being 'nonmanual' are rapidly becoming meaningless - capitalism attempts to drive a wedge between the two sections of Clerks are referred to as non-productive and "indirect' workers by consultants and managements, implying that they do no real work as comSCIENTIFIC WORLD

ULNUU UIIIUUULLU Thursday, January A SIMPLE and cheap WORKI are 'synchronized' that lasers PAGE THREE