{"resolved":true,"match_type":"uuid","source_type":"original_book","book_id":"bde76793-4c65-415a-a237-6ccacc2e0802","title":"Labor and Monopoly Capital The Degradation of Work in the Twentieth Century","author":null,"edition":null,"publisher":null,"year":null,"isbn":"0853459401","requested_by":"printed_page","book":{"source_type":"original_book","book_id":"bde76793-4c65-415a-a237-6ccacc2e0802","id":"bde76793-4c65-415a-a237-6ccacc2e0802","uuid":"bde76793-4c65-415a-a237-6ccacc2e0802","title":"Labor and Monopoly Capital The Degradation of Work in the Twentieth Century","normalized_title":"laborandmonopolycapitalthedegradationofworkinthetwentiethcentury","author":null,"edition":null,"publisher":null,"year":null,"isbn":"0853459401","isbns":["0853459401"],"parsed":true,"ai_readable":true,"document_type":"book","page_count":183,"navigation_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/book/bde76793-4c65-415a-a237-6ccacc2e0802","title_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/title/Labor%20and%20Monopoly%20Capital%20The%20Degradation%20of%20Work%20in%20the%20Twentieth%20Century","fixed_page_url_template":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/book/bde76793-4c65-415a-a237-6ccacc2e0802/page/{printed_page}","path_api_url_template":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/book/bde76793-4c65-415a-a237-6ccacc2e0802/page/{printed_page}","read_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/read/bde76793-4c65-415a-a237-6ccacc2e0802","page_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/books/bde76793-4c65-415a-a237-6ccacc2e0802/page","search_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/books/bde76793-4c65-415a-a237-6ccacc2e0802/search"},"page":{"printed_page":123,"pdf_page":74,"physical_index":74,"physical_index_base":0,"printed_page_status":"recognized","page_sha256":"deb14e84966b6726a14303cde3c028c689bd3c46a221fa84ade3be972ab42e5c"},"chapter":"Acknowledgments","content":"Release is given not only for normal release (by opening fingers), but for contact release (releasing typewriter key).\n\nBody, leg, and foot motions are set forth for the various movements of Bend, Sit, Stop, Walk, etc., for varying distances. And finally, a formula is given for Eye Travel Time:\n\n$$\n\\mathrm { E T } = 1 5 . 2 \\times \\frac { T } { D } \\mathrm { T M U }\n$$\n\nwith a maximum of 20 TMU. Eye Focus is defined as occupying 7.3 TMU.\\*\n\nMore recent research has attempted to overcome the defects inherent in standard data, which, in breaking down motions into elementary components, neglect the factors of velocity and acceleration in human motions—motions which take place as a flow rather than as a series of disjunctive movements. Efforts have been made to find a means of gaining a continuous, uninterrupted view of human motion, and to measure it on that basis. In the course of this research, the use of radar, accelerometers, photoelectric waves, air pressure, magnetic fields, capacitive effects, motion pictures, radioactivity, etc., have been investigated, and in the end, sound waves, using the Doppler shift, have been chosen as the most suitable. An inaudible sound source (20,000 cycles per second) given off by a transducer is attached to the body member under consideration. Three microphones, each ten feet from an assumed one cubic yard of work area, are placed in such a way that each represents one of the three spatial dimensions, and they pick up the increased or decreased number of cycles per second as the sound source moves toward or away from each of them. These changes in cycles are converted into changes in voltage, the output of which is therefore proportional to the velocity of motion. The three velocities are recorded on magnetic tape (or plotted on oscillographic paper) and can then be combined into a total velocity by vector summation. Total acceleration and total distance can be derived, and can then be handled mathematically, and by computer, for analysis and prediction. This device goes by the name Universal Operator Performance Analyzer and Recorder (UNOPAR), and is said to be, if nothing else, an excellent timing device accurate to .000066 minutes, though not to be compared in this respect to electronic timing devices, which are accurate to a millionth of a second. (But these last, we are told ruefully, are useful only for experimental purposes, and not in the workplace.)º\n\nPhysiological models are also used for the measurement of energy expenditure, for which oxygen consumption and heart rate are the most usual indicators; these are charted by means of oxygen-supply measuring devices and electrocardiograms. Forces applied by the body (as well as to it) are measured on a force platform, using piezo-electric crystals in the mountings. In another variant, we read, in an article entitled “The Quantification ofHuman Effort and Motion for the Upper Limbs,\" about a framework called \"the exoskeletal kinematometer,\" which is described as “a device which mounts externally upon the human subject for the purpose of measuring the kinematic characteristics of his limbs during the performance of a task.\"lº The measurement of eye movements is done through photographic techniques and also by electro-oculography, which uses electrodes placed near the eye.\n\nThe data derived from all these systems, from the crudest to the most refined, are used as the basis for engineering the “human factor\"in work design. Since the accumulation of data does away with the need to time each operation, management is spared the friction that arises in such a procedure, and the worker is spared the knowledge that the motions, time, and labor cost for his or her job have been precalculated, with “humane\" allowances for rest, toilet, and coffee time, before anyone was hired and perhaps even before the building was erected.\\* By eliminating the need for repeated experiments, they make available to any user, at low cost, figures which may be combined and recombined in any desired fashion, merely by the use of pencil and paper, to bring into being predetermined time standards for any engineering or office purpose. The time values of given motion patterns are respected in management circles as “objective\" and“scientific,\" and bear the authority such values are presumed to carry. In recent years, motion-time study or therblig systems have had their logic and arithmetic assigned to computers, so that the time allowance for various job elements is worked out by the computer on the basis of standard data, perhaps supplemented by time study observations.\\*\\*\n\n122 Labor and Monopoly Capital\n\nThe Scientific-Technical Revolution and the Worker\n\n123\n\n\\* A management team with the Dickensian name of Payne and Swett see in this the very first advantage of standard data: its “favorable impact on employee relations,\" which is their euphemism for the above.\"\n\n\\*\\* This was the mode used by the General Motors Assembly Division in its reorganization, begun in 1968, of the jobs of both clerical and production workers, in which the number of jobs was reduced and the number of operations assigned to each worker was increased, the number of repair or inspection workers reduced, and the number of supervisors to enforce the new standards was increased. It was this reorganization which led to the 1972 strikes in the General Motors plants at Norwood, Ohio lasting 174 days, and Lordstown, Ohio, lasting three weeks (although the Lordstown strike got all the journalistic attention because it was attributed largely to the youthful composition of the work force at that plant, while the Norwood strike was susceptible of no such interpretation).12 A vice-president of General Motors pointed out that in ten plant reorganizations conducted by the General Motors Assembly Division after 1968, eight of them produced strikes. “I'm not boasting,\"he added, \"I'm just relating relevant history.\"13\n\n\\* These last are instances of the charting approach to human sensory activity, visual, auditory, and tactile, which have been developed since the early 1950s and which aim at comprehending a larger range of work activities outside the purely manual, in order to apply them not only to clerical work but also to professional and semi-professional specialties.º","previous_page":null,"next_page":null}