Working With the Working WomanParker, Cornelia Stratton
History
Working With the Working Woman
Parker, Cornelia Stratton
United States -- Social conditions; Women -- Employment -- United States; Working class -- United States
It worked in a vicious circle. The average job gave the worker little
or no chance to show any initiative, to feel any sense of ownership or
responsibility, to use such intellect and enthusiasm as he possessed.
The attitude of the average employer built up no spirit of loyalty or
co-operation between management and men. Hence these very human
tendencies, compelling expression in a normal personality, became
atrophied, as far as the job was concerned, and sought such
functioning as a discouraging environment left them capable of in
fields outside of industry—in many cases, within the labor movement
itself. The less capacity the job called out, the more incapable the
worker became. Tendencies inherent in human nature, whose expressions
all these years could have been enriching the individual and industry,
and therefore the nation as a whole, have been balked entirely, or
shunted off to find expression often in antisocial outlets. In some
cases the loss to industry was small, since the individual capacities
at best were small. In other cases the loss was great indeed. In every
case, encouragement of the use of capacities increases the
possibilities of those capacities.
The first step in this process of conversion then is to reorganize the
relationship between management and men so that as many outlets as
possible within industry can be found for those human expressions
whose functioning will enrich the individual and industry. Which means
that little by little the workers must share in industrial
responsibilities. The job itself, with every conceivable invention for
calling out the creative impulse, can never, under the machine
process, enlist sufficient enthusiasm for sustained interest and
loyalty on the part of the worker. He must come to have a word in
management, in determining the conditions under which he labors five
and a half to seven days a week.
It is a nice point here. The parlor Bolshevik pictures all labor eager
and anxious and capable of actually controlling industry. The fact of
the matter is that most individuals from any and every walk of life
prefer to sidestep responsibility. Yet everyone does better under
some. Too much may have a more disastrous effect than not enough—to
the individual as well as industry. Here again is where there must be
caution in generalizing. Each employer has a problem of his own. Nor
can the exact amount of responsibility necessary to call out maximum
efficiency and enthusiasm ever be determined in advance.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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