The spread of Taylor

When put back into context, and following over a century of thinking about the organisation of labour, the originality of TAYLOR is not as clear-cut as all that. The task analysis principles that he advocated were already known and the task rationalisation doctrine already enjoyed a considerable amount of success at that time. Thus, Taylor was above all a banner for the rationalisation movement. Indeed, it was this movement that promoted his ideas more than anything else.

Nobody can disagree with the fact that TAYLOR was a propagandist and the flag bearer of the industrial rationalisation movement before him, a movement which had already met with success within companies before he arrived on the scene. "His" ideas were to exert considerable influence throughout the 20th century, in the United States as in Europe, including the Soviet Union, even though this country was organised according to different social organisation and wealth distribution principles. They were adopted and developed further by various engineers and organisational consultants. In the United States, Frank and Lillian GlLBRETH, who were contemporaries of TAYLOR, carried out large-scale studies on workers' movements. To begin with, however, Taylor's ideas and methods were welcomed with a certain amount of reserve by the American industrialist milieu. They came up against the reticence of companies themselves as well as opposition from management (owing to the calling into question of the former power system), faced with Taylor's powerful determination. He also got the trade unions' backs up by setting the best productivity levels achieved as the standards and introducing penalties for non-compliance with these standards. The scandal produced by taylorian methods was such that an investigation was carried out by American Congress.

In France, these methods did not encounter much enthusiasm either amongst industrialists before the First World War. Taylor's works were introduced by Henri Le Chatelier in 1904, then by the creation of the first "consultant engineers", notably the creation, in 1912, of a consulting subsidiary of the American company Morinni. In 1929, another consulting firm was created in France, the Paul PLANUS office, which was affiliated to the American consultancy firm THOMPSON, who was a disciple of Taylor. This French subsidiary notably employed Maurice LOICHAUT and the engineer BEDEAU, who was to apply taylorian methods to bottom miners' work with so much zeal, under the Vichy regime during the 1940-1945 war, that when the country was liberated he was accused of collabourating with the occupiers and sentenced by the courts. In the 50's, a French polytechnic graduate, André Vidal, founded a new consulting firm; he sold psychometric tests and included taylorian timing methods and psycho-sociological methods for acting on the human factor. Marcel LOICHAUT, another French polytechnic graduate, and former Vidal consultant, created the SMA consultancy in 1958, which later became the SEMA. He was a passionate defender of the proportional system promoted by engineer BEDEAU. Progressively, the scientific organisation of labour (SOL) gradually cut out a reputation for itself in engineering circles, especially among young engineers in favour of management science, progressists who wanted to renovate workshops and companies, advocated a scientific approach and set themselves up as mediators between employers and workers. As of the 1920's, taylorism also met with success inside university circles.

The British officer Lyndall URWICK created a scientific management association to promote taylorism. Thus, Taylor's ideas were taken up by many managers. His influence can be found in Japanese companies since 1913, and in Taiichi Ohno's design of "Just in Time" methods in the 70's, as well as in the process "Re-engineering" of MIT member Michael HAMMER in the 1990's. Taylorism also met with much success in military applications, in Nazi Germany (including the organisation of concentration camps) and in fascist Italy.

The success and spread of taylorism also had an influence on the zvar effort (1914-1918). Indeed, the breaking down of repetitive basic tasks helped to implement labour unused to working in an industrial environment. Taylorism thus made it possible to put immigrant farmers to work in French factories, as well as women. The challenge was not to increase productive performance levels but simply to use unskilled labour. Whatever its qualities, taylorism at least had the advantage of not

depending on a skilled labour force. Moreover, the war effort made the monotonous and difficult working conditions resulting from this type of organisation of labour acceptable. As far as the workers' unions were concerned, although there was opposition to taylorism to begin with, the methods were quickly accepted insofar as they became part of collective negotiations as of 1914. The adoption of the scientific organisation of labour was linked to its ability to integrate low-skilled workers. SOL was also supported by a productivist French trade union, the CGT.

Date: 2016-03-03; view: 789