'All a matter of timing': Managerial innovation and workplace culture in the New South Wales railways and tramways prior to 1921

Australian Historical Studies

Volumn 29, Issue 110, 1998, Pages 1-26

  Taksa, Lucy ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF NEW SOUTH WALES   (Australia)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 39049130662     PISSN: 1031461X     EISSN: 19405049     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/10314619808596058     Document Type: Article

References (55)

1. Daniel R. Headrick, The Tentacles of Progress: Technology Transfer in the Age of Imperialism, 1850-1940, Oxford University Press, New York, 1988, pp. 52, 304-7, 316; Garry Wotherspoon, 'Introduction', in Garry Wotherspoon (ed.), Sydney's Transport: Studies in Urban History, Hale & Iremonger, Sydney, 1983, p. 17
2. Lucy Taksa, 'Scientific Management: Technique or Cultural Ideology?', Journal of Industrial Relations, vol. 34, no. 3, September 1992, pp. 365-95; Kevin Whitson, 'Scientific Management and Production Management Practice in Britain between the Wars', Historical Studies in Industrial Relations, vol. 1, March 1996, p. 47
3. Frank Barkley Copley, F.W. Taylor: Father of Scientific Management (1923), Augustus M. Kelly Publishers, New York, 1969, vol. 1, pp. 97-332; David Montgomery, Workers' Control in America: Studies in the History of Work. Technology and Labor Struggles, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1979, pp. 107, 114-16
4. Jeremy Brecher, The Labor Process in a New Zealand Factory: The Hillside Railway Workshops, 1890-1930, unpublished paper, 11 April 1987, University of Otago, New Zealand; Eric Olssefn, 'Railway Workers and Scientific Management', in John E. Martin and Kerry Taylor (eds), Culture and the Labour Movement: Essays in New Zealand Labour History, Dunmore Press, Palmerston North, 1991, pp. 128-41; Greg Patmore, 'Systematic Management and Bureaucracy: The NSW Railways prior to 1932', Labour and Industry, vol. 1, no. 2, June 1988, pp. 306-21; Eddie Butler-Bowden, In the Service?: A History of Victorian Railway Workers and their Union, Hyland House, Melbourne, 1991, pp. 48-52
5. G.A. Patmore, A History of Industrial Relations in the NSW Government Railways: 1855-1929, PhD thesis, University of Sydney, 1985, chap. 7; Peter Cochrane, 'Company Time: Management, Ideology and the Labour Process, 1940-1960', Labour History, no. 48, May 1985, pp. 54-68
6. Initially, when it began on 2 August, the strike involved 5,780 of the department's workers. By the end of its first week, this number had grown to 10,000 and, by 22 October, approximately 97,500 workers had become involved. Of these, about 77,350 were located in NSW. See further: Lucy Taksa, 'Defence not Defiance: Social Protest and the NSW General Strike of 1917', Labour History, no. 60, May 1991, pp. 16-33
7. Harry Braverman, Labor and Monopoly Capitalism: The Degradation of Work in the Twentieth Century, Monthly Review Press, New York, 1974, pp. 85-90, 113-14, 119; Evan Willis (ed.), Technology and the Labour Process: Australasian Case Studies, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 1988; Raelene Frances, The Politics of Work: Gender and Labour in Victoria, 1880-1939, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1993, pp. 1-10
8. David Brody, Workers in Industrial America: Essays on the Twentieth Century Struggle, Oxford University Press, New York, 1980, pp. 11-12; Richard Edwards, Contested Terrain: The Transformation of the Workplace in the Twentieth Century, Basic Books, New York, 1979, pp. 98, 101-2, 104; Peter Cochrane, 'Job Security: The Frontier of Control', Arena, no. 64, 1983, pp. 121-30; Raelene Frances, '"No More Amazons": Gender and Work Process in the Victorian Clothing Trades, 1890- 1939', Labour History, no. 50, May 1986, pp. 95-112; Chris Wright, 'The Management Consultant and the Introduction of Scientific Management in Australian Industry', in Mark Bray and Diana Kelly (eds). Issues and Trends in Australasian Industrial Relations. Proceedings of the Fourth Biennial AIRAANZ Conference, University of Wollongong, February 1989, pp. 227-56
9. Tim Rowse, Australian Liberalism and National Character, Kibble, Melbourne, 1978, pp. 62-3; Cochrane, 'Company Time', pp. 54-68; Chris Wright, 'Taylorism Reconsidered: The Impact of Scientific Management within the Australian Workplace', Labour History, no. 64, May 1993, pp. 34-53; Greg Patmore, 'American Hustling Methods-The Lithgow Small Arms Factory 1912- 1922', Labour History, no. 67, November 1994, pp. 42-56; Frances, The Politics of Work, pp. 167, 183; Richard Dunford, 'Scientific Management in Australia: A Discussion Paper', Labour and Industry, vol. 1, no. 3, October 1988, pp. 505-15
10. Michael Rose, Industrìal Behaviour: Theoretical Development since Taylor, Allen Lane. London, 1975; Alan Fox, Beyond Contract: Work Power and Trust Relations, Faber & Faber, London, 1974; Craig Littler, 'Understanding Taylorism', British Journal of Sociology, vol. 29, no. 2, June 1978, pp. 185- 202; Craig Littler, The Development of the Labour Process in Capitalist Societies: A Comparative Analysis of Work and Organisation in Britain, the USA and Japan, Heinemann, London, 1982
11. Reinhard Bendix, Work and Authority in Industry: Ideologies of Management in the Course of Industrialization, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1974, p. 281; Merkle, op. cit., pp. 3, 86-7, 93, 97; David Stark, 'Class Struggle and the Transformation of the Labor Process', Theory and Society, vol. 9, no. 1, 1980, pp. 102, 117
12. Rowse, op. cit., pp. 37-76; Michael Roe, Nine Australian Progressives: Vitalism in Bourgeois Social Thought 1890-1960, University of Queensland Press. Brisbane, 1984; Desley Deacon, Managing Gender: The State, the New Middle Class and Women Workers 1830-1930, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1989; Kerreen M. Reiger, The Disenchantment of the Home: Modernizing the Australian Family 1880-1940, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1985; Stephen Garton, Medicine & Madness: A Social History of Insanity in New South Wales 1880-1940, New South Wales University Press, Sydney, 1988
13. See, for example, Desley Deacon, 'Taylorism in the Home: The Medical Profession, the Infant Welfare Movement and the Deskilling of Women', Australian and New Zealand Journal of Sociology, vol. 21, no. 2, July 1985, pp. 161-73; Jill Julius Matthews, Good and Mad Women: The Historical Construction of Femininity in Twentieth-Century Australia. George Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 1985, pp. 92-6; Kerreen Reiger, Mothering De-skilled? Australian Childrearing and the Experts in the Twentieth Century, paper presented to ANZAAS Congress, 1984, pp. 12-21; Cochrane, 'Company Time', pp. 54, 56-7, 61; Bryan Palmer, 'Class, Conception and Conflict: The Thrust for Efficiency, Managerial Views of Labor and the Working Class Rebellion, 1903-1922', Review of Radical Political Economics, vol. 7, no. 2, 1975, pp. 31-49
14. Littler, The Development of the Labour Process, pp. 48-9; Littler, 'Understanding Taylorism', pp. 186-7
15. Wright, 'The Management Consultant', p. 227. See also: Cochrane, 'Job Security', pp. 124-5; Cochrane, 'Company Time', pp. 57-8, 66; Patmore, 'American Hustling Methods', pp. 49-53
16. Edwin Layton, 'The Diffusion of Scientific Management and Mass Production from the U.S. in the Twentieth Century', International Congress of the History of Science, 15th Proceedings, no. 4, 1974, pp. 377-86; Elizabeth L. Otey, Employers' Welfare Work, United States Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Bulletin no. 123, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1913, pp. 30-1; Mary Barnett Gilson, 'Scientific Management and Personnel Work', Bulletin of the Taylor Society, vol. 9, no. 1, 25 January 1924, p. 39; Drury, op. cit., pp. 180-2; C.B. Thompson, The Theory and Practice of Scientific Management, Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, 1917, p. 71
17. Wright, 'Taylorism Reconsidered', pp. 34-53; Frances, The Politics of Work, p. 184; Margaret Gardener and Gill Palmer, Employment Relations: Industrial Relations and Human Resource Management in Australia, Macmillan, Melbourne, 1992, pp. 51-3, 56-7; Christopher Wright, The Management of Labour: A History of Australian Employers, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1995, pp. 25-8
18. N.C. Harris, Industrial Efficiency: A Series of Lectures Delivered at the Victorian Railways Institute, Melbourne, March 1914; R.F. Irvine (ed.), National Efficiency, Victorian Railways Printing Branch, Melbourne, 1915; Chris Nyland, Worktime and the Rationalisation of the Capitalist Production Process, PhD thesis, University of Adelaide, 1985; Lucy Taksa, 'The Cultural Diffusion of Scientific Management: The United States and New South Wales', Journal of Industrial Relations, vol. 37, no. 3, September 1995, pp. 427-61
19. Raymond Williams, Resources of Hope: Culture, Democracy, Socialism, ed. Robin Gable, Verso, London, 1989, p. 4 ; Raymond Williams, Culture and Society: 1780-1950, Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1963, pp. 312-14; Gareth Morgan, Images of Organization, Sage, Newbury Park, 1986, p . 132
20. Lex Heerma van Voss and Frits van Holthoon, 'Popular Culture, Local Culture, Working Class Culture: Problems of Definition and Comparison', in Lex Heerma van Voss and Frits van Holthoon (eds), Working Class and Popular Culture: Papers Delivered at the Anglo-Dutch Conference on Labour History, Leiden, 1986, Stichtig Beheer IISG, Amsterdam, 1988, pp. 10-11
21. Daily Telegraph (hereafter DT), 13 August 1917, 25 August 1917; Sydney Morning Herald (hereafter SMH), 8 and 9 August 1917; Mr Justice Curlewis, 'Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Effects of the Workings of the System known as the Job and Time Cards System Introduced into the Tramways and Railways Workshops of the Railways Commissioners', NSW Parliamentary Papers (hereafter NSW PP), 1918, vols 5 and 6, pp. x, 28; J.B. Holme, 'The NSW Strike Crisis, 1917: Report Prepared by the Industrial Commissioner of the State', NSW PP, 1917-1918, vol. II, pp. 15, 61-3, 66, 69-70
22. A. Johansson, Arbetarrorelsen och taylorismen: Olofstrom 1895-1925: En studie av verkstadsindustrin och arbetets organisering (The Labour Movement and Taylorism: Olofstrom 1895-1925: A Study of the Engineering Industry and the Organisation of Work), p. 233, cited in Lars Ekdahl, 'Review Article-From Class Struggle to Class Co-operation: Taylorism and the Origins of the Swedish Model', Economic and Industrial Democracy, vol. 13, 1992, p. 121; G.G. Humphreys, Taylorism in France, 1904-1920: The Impact of Scientific Management on Factory Relations and Society, Garland, New York, 1986, pp. 166-7; Holme, op. cit., appendix no. 16, p. 71
23. F.W. Taylor, Taylor's Testimony before the Special House Committee' (1912), in F.W. Taylor, Scientific Management, Harper & Brothers, New York, 1947, pp. 180-2, 189-92; Milton Nadworny, Scientific Management and the Unions 1900-1932: A Historical Analysis, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1955, pp. 87-9; Robert Franklin Hoxie, Scientific Management and Labor, D. Appleton and Co., New York, 1915, pp. 17, 19, 76, 99, 104, 106, 112, 130; Bernard Muscio, Lectures on Industrial Psychology, Angus & Robertson, Sydney, 1917
24. F.W. Taylor, The Principles of Scientific Management, Harper & Brothers, N e w York, 1911, pp. 140, 10
25. Taylor, Taylor's Testimony', pp. 27, 29-31, 150; F.W. Taylor, 'Shop Management' (1903), in Taylor, Scientific Management, p. 60; Taylor, The Principles, pp. 136, 139, 142
26. Taylor, 'Shop Management', p. 188; Taylor, 'Taylor's Testimony', pp. 8-12
27. Taylor, The Principles, pp. 36, 128-30; Taylor, 'Taylor's Testimony', pp. 40-5
28. Taylor, 'A Piece-rate System', pp. 875-6, 883; Taylor, 'Taylor's Testimony', pp. 35-6; Taylor, The Principles, pp. 30-2; F.W. Taylor, 'The Principles of Scientific Management', in Dartmouth College Conferences, First Tuck School Conference, Address and Discussions at the Conference on Scientific Management Held October 12, 13, 14, Nineteen Hundred and Eleven (1911), Hive Publishing, Easton, 1972, p. 31
29. Littler, Development of the Labour Process, p. 55
30. Patmore, 'Systematic Management', pp. 306-21; Nelson, Managers and Workers, pp. 101-2, 106; Advisory Council of Science and Industry (hereafter ACSI), Welfare Work, Bulletin no. 15, Government Printer, Melbourne, 1919, pp. 8-9
31. James F. Butterworth, 'Scientific Management, with Special Reference to Incentives and Motion Study', AM, 24 January 1920, p. 23; Raelene Frances, The Politics of Work: Case Studies of Three Victorian Industries, 1880-1939, PhD thesis, Monash University, 1988, pp. 302-3
32. ACSI, Welfare Work, p. 15
33. ACSI, Industrial Co-operation in Australia, Bulletin no. 17, Government Printer, Melbourne, 1920, pp. 15-16
34. Brett Lennon and Garry Wotherspoon, 'Sydney's Trams 1861-1914: The Rise of an Urban Mass Transport System', in Wotherspoon (ed.), op. cit., pp. 101-6; John Gunn, Along Parallel Lines: A History of the Railways of New South Wales, 1850-1986, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 1989, pp. 13-47; 'Railways and Tramways', The Cyclopedia of New South Wales: An Historical and Commercial Review, Descriptive and Biographical Facts, Figures and Illustrations, An Epitome of Progress, McCarron, Stewart & Co., Sydney, 1907, pp. 253-8
35. Annual Report (hereafter AR) of the Commissioner of Railways, 1880, p. 11, R8/2, State Railway Authority Archives (hereafter SRAA), Sydney; David Burke, Making the Railways, State Library of New South Wales Press, Sydney, 1995, pp. 82, 86-9; C.R.G. Field, 'Sydney's First Electric Tramway: Waverley to Randwick', Electric Traction, November 1953; Chief Mechanical Engineer's Report, appendix II, AR for 1890-91, pp. 19-20, R9/3, SRAA, Sydney; Chief Mechanical Engineer's Report, appendix II, AR for 1892-93, pp. 20-1, R9/4, SRAA, Sydney; Ten Years' Retrospect, appendix to the Report of the Railway Commissioners, August 1899, p. 50, R9/11, SRAA, Sydney
36. H.B. Howe, 'Presidential Address', Proceedings, Engineering Association of NSW, vol. 15, 1900, pp. 2-5, 14
37. L.G. Churchward, Australia & America 1788-1972, Alternative Publishing, Sydney, 1979, pp. 110- 12; Proceedings of the International Railway Congress Association, 7th Session, Washington, 1905, P. Weissenbruch, Brussels, 1906, pp. 22-33, 188-9; Railway and Tramway Budget, 7 October 1905, p. 335 (renamed Magazine in December 1917, hereafter Budget/Magazine). See also: AM, 25 January 1916, p. 28; 25 July 1916, p. 10
38. AR for 1898, including Chief Mechanical Engineer's Report, pp. 7, 14, R9/10, SRAA, Sydney; C. McAllister, T. Roberts, G. Nutt, T.H. Woodroffe, W. Thow, Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Practicability of the Construction of Locomotives by the Government, or by Private Enterprise, in this State, Government Printer, Sydney, 1904, pp. 1-8; Gunn, op. cit., pp. 214-15, 249-50
39. Patmore, A History of Industrial Relations, pp. 4, 22-5, 102-5, chaps 3 and 4; Patmore, 'Systematic Management and Bureaucracy', pp. 309-11; Gunn, op. cit., pp. 150, 205; ACSI, Industrial Cooperation, pp. 56-7; Lucy Taksa, 'Spreading the Word: The Literature of Labour and Working Class Culture', in Shields (ed.), op. cit., pp. 68-9
40. James Fraser, 'Address by Mr. Fraser (Deputy Chief Commissioner) to Employees at the Locomotive and Carriage and Wagon Shops, Eveleigh, 23/11/1916', pp. 3-5, Mitchell Library, Sydney
41. Meredith Atkinson, 'Democracy and Efficiency', in Irvine (ed.), op. cit., pp. 27-8, 32-3; Taylor, The Principles, p. 136, 139, 142
42. T.H. Houghton, 'Presidential Address', Proceedings, Royal Society of NSW, vol. 52, 1917, p. 20; NSW Government Railways, 'Eveleigh Locomotive Workshops', n.d., p. 8, B253, SRAA, Sydney; Budget, 1 May 1917, p. 278; 1 November 1917, p. 37
43. Eveleigh Locomotive Workshops, op. cit., pp. 8-9; Budget/Magazine, 1 August 1916, p. 348; 1 November 1920, p. 674; E.E. Lucy, 'Railway Electrification', Transactions, Institute of Engineers, Australia, vol. 7, 1926, part II, pp. 363, 366-7
44. Taylor, 'Shop Management', p. 127
45. Hugh G.J. Aitken, Taylorism at Watertown Arsenal, Oxford University Press, London, 1960, p. 107; Copley, op. c i t , vol. 1, p. 309; vol. 2, p. 338; Patmore, A History of Industrial Relations, pp. 354-5
46. Bernard Muscio, 'The Taylor System: 1. General Features', SMH, 15 August 1917. See also, 17 August 1917; Taylor, The Principles, pp. 68-9; Taylor, 'Taylor's Testimony', pp. 58-
47. DT, 9 August 1917; Curlewis, op. cit., pp. 15-17
48. James Nangle, 'Report of the Superintendent of Technical Education, Report of the Minister of Public Instruction for the Year 1914', NSWPP, vol. 1, 1915-16, pp. 100, 104; 'Report of the Minister of Public Instruction for the Year 1913', NSWPP, vol. 1, part 1, 1914, p. 19; Budget, 1 March 1916, p. 212
49. Budget/Magazine, 1 August 1917, p. 357; 1 November 1916, p. 75; 1 February 1917, p. 192; 1 March 1917, p. 223; 1 November 1917, p. 81; 1 March 1918, pp. 213-15; 1 June 1918, p. 344; Taylor, The Principles, pp. 30-2; Taylor, 'Taylor's Testimony', pp. 35-6
50. See, for example, Magazine, 1 April 1919, p. iv; 1 October 1919, p. vi
51. Magazine, 1 March 1920, p. 264. See generally, Budget, 1 August 1917, p. 357
52. Budget/Magazine, 1 August 1916, p. 350; 1 September 1916, p. 2; 1 March 1920, p. 281
53. Budget, 1 December 1916, p. 125
54. Magazine, 1 February 1918, pp. 153-5; 1 March 1918, p. 227; William Poole, 'Presidential Address: Engineering and Technical Education', Proceedings, Sydney University Engineering Society, vol. 20, 1915-16, pp. 134-5; Magazine, 1 February 1918, pp. 155-6. See also, NSW Department of Education, Careers for Boys: A Guide for Parents, Government Printer, Sydney, 1917
55. Quinten Hoare and Geoffrey Nowell Smith (eds), Selections from the Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci, Lawrence & Wishart, London, 1971, pp. 247, 344, 348; Carl Boggs, Gramsci's Marxism, Pluto Press, London, 1976, pp. 40-1