Division of labour

Indirect production occurs when people work in specialist occupations, those for which they have a particular talent or inclination. Man to some extent has always specialised in his work - even among the early cave dwellers there were male jobs and female jobs, just as it was the young and healthy who went to hunt while the older and less fleet of foot stayed to fashion the tools and weapons. In medieval times the growth of population created a need for further identifying names, and it was just as natural to call a man by his trade as by where he lived or by some personal characteristic. In the former group there are many indications of the gradual breaking down of main occupations into specialist parts e.g. Cartwright, Wheelwright. It was this greater specialisation which really developed in the eighteenth century which intrigued Smith. In perhaps the best known part of his book he described the break-down of operations in a pin-making factory. He described how each man became responsible for one task only, one part of the productive process, and then emphasised the tremendous increase in productivity. He reported that jointly the ten men employed could produce some 48,000 pins per day whereas if each man had had to complete each stage of manufacture he would be lucky to have made twenty!

Advantages of division of labour

1. It creates the opportunity for workers to do the job for which they have a talent or liking. It was obvious that the best bowmen, spearmen and the brave became the hunters and we have simply developed from there. It does not mean that all workers are doing the job which interests them most or for which they have the greatest ability but specialisation gives them the chance to avoid those jobs they would do badly. Naturally some men have a wider range of ability than others. Thus while a doctor may also be a first class gardener it is more advantageous for Society if he specialises in the former occupation and leaves the gardening to a man who has just that talent. Equally so some men, through no fault of their own, have very limited ability, perhaps because of some physical or mental handicap or lack of educational opportunities, but the development of the sub-division of trades into specialised aspects, some requiring little skill or physical effort, has meant work for such men and a chance of a higher standard of living. Many processes of a purely repetitive nature lend themselves to the introduction of more machinery thus liberating labour for other work. For example the more talented may move from the shop floor into design and develop­ment and consequently, the results of their work bring improvements onto the factory floor. It also releases more workers for purely service trades and we have already seen the importance of this to the general standard of living.

2. Increased dexterity. Because the worker is repeating the same task at the same work station he naturally gains in dexterity; in humble terms "practice makes perfect". In recent years greater attention has been paid to such repetitive work with the skills analyst devising the best sequence of operations to enable the operative to attain such dexterity as quickly as possible.

3. Economy in the use of tool sets. When each man produces the whole article he needs a complete set of tools, but when the process is sub-divided the same set of tools can be spread over a team of workers. There is not only a saving in initial capital outlay but also because the tool is in constant use there is no time when it is not earning (this is most important in the case of highly specific equipment). Further savings in costs are likely in that:

1. because the tool is in constant use it is likely to be worn out before it becomes out-dated.

2. the worker constantly using the same tool will be looking for the best way to use it and will be in the best place to suggest improvements in its design.

   4. Economy in time

a) Firstly time is saved in training. In many cases production has been so sub-divided that it is difficult to talk of training. The moulders, pattern-makers and machinists who produce the engine still need lengthy train­ing because there is much to learn but the worker who bolts the completed engine into place with the aid of power tools requires very little. The latter is therefore producing to full capacity very soon after recruitment.

b) Secondly time is saved in not having to move from one work station to another and to adapt to a different rhythm of work. Obviously this does not apply to the specialist outside the factory situation. The gas-fitter as he works through his day's job cards cannot avoid moving his work station. How best to reduce his travelling time is still a matter for discussion.

4. Economy of effort. Sub-division of the work has made possible the introduc­tion of labour saving devices which have reduced the physical effort necessary in many occupations. Similarly the greater mechanisation has helped to reduce the hours needed to be worked and so it is claimed that division of labour has reduced fatigue.

5. Greater output. All these advantages have culminated in greater output in total and also in greater productivity per man hour just as Adam Smith observed in the pin factory. It has also resulted in a greater range of goods and services being produced and therefore created a wider range of job opportunities.

Disadvantages of division of labour

Naturally some of the results of specialisation must be entered on the debit side; some of these affect the individual worker and some Society as a whole.

1. Monotony. Although it is true that some people are unaffected by the repetitive nature of their work, it must be true that many workers find their small рart of the process very boring. Monotony can lead to disinterest and so to poor quality work, so that a higher reject rate may counteract the advantages of faster output. At the very least boredom must engender an underlying current of irritation so that comparatively trivial matters can develop quickly into serious industrial disputes. If variety is the spice of life we see the reason for the Volvo management's decision to get away from the traditional track mass-production techniques of car manufacture. However we should remember that it is not just the process worker who is so affected, many professional and office workers must sometimes be jaded by the sameness of their work. After all income tax queries, requests for housing transfers or applications for Social Security benefits cannot be all different. A certain degree of monotony is the price we pay for acquiring expertise.

2. Decline in craftsmanship. This is usually linked with (1) because the subdivision of the trade and the increased mechanisation has meant that there is no longer the need for the complete craftsman. We should be careful not to overstate this aspect because craftsmen do still exist producing for those relative few who can afford their prices, while the majority of us are grateful that a vast range of goods, mass-produced by workers who do not claim to be craftsmen, have been brought within our price range. If we want something better or different from the standardised quality then we must be prepared to pay extra.

3. The possibility of unemployment. This threat must always face the complete specialist because changing technology or changing market conditions may affect the whole structure of the industry. This threat is particularly acute for middle-aged workers because potential employers must regard them in terms of the cost of re-training and what return they will get. Structural unemployment becomes a real problem when a region has specialised e.g, coal-mining, and there are few alternative jobs.

To be set against this is the fact that if because of the division of labour, a great deal of skill has been taken out of many jobs, then for many workers it may not be so difficult to transfer and undergo another very short training period. However the problems of unemployment and the mobility of labour are too important to be dealt with in this section.

4. The growth of the tertiary trades. Specialisation and mass-production techniques have resulted in output figures which have necessitated a tremendous growth of marketing agencies by which the products reach the consumer. The development in recent years of manufacturer/retailer integration must be seen as a method of eliminating middlemen's costs which to some extent have counteracted the economies of large scale production.

There are social implications too, e.g. if all the Clydeside shipyards had closed it would not have been just the boilermakers, riveters and the like experiencing structural unemployment. The general reduction in purchasing power in the area would ultimately have chain reacted on the tertiary trades of the district.

5. Difficulties arising from greater interdependence. As each worker becomes more specialised so he becomes more and more dependent on others. Section В cannot do its work if there is no flow through from Section A; but neither A nor В go on indefinitely if Section С has stopped. Thus it is very easy to disrupt the flow of modern production and very easy for 'bottlenecks' to develop. It is this which makes the whole field of labour relations so important and consequently it is vital that management and the Unions should work harmoniously.

Key words and word combinations of the text.

utility	commodity
clerical workers	design workers
manual	mental
service trades	indirect production
dynamic changes	industrial development
productivity	tremendous increase
repetitive nature	increased dexterity
sequence of operations	spread over
lengthy training	recruitment
physical effort	greater output
reject rate	irritation
mass-production	techniques
expertise	overstate
afford	price range
potential employers	marketing agencies
purchasing power	disrupt