ABSTRACT
The engineering and kindred industries were, before the war, conducted partly on the piece-work and partly on the time-work system of wage payment. Time-work predominated among the skilled workers, while the majority of the less skilled machine-workers on repetition processes were remunerated on a piece-work basis. The system theoretically in operation for the fixing of piece-work prices was that of ‘mutuality’, or individual bargaining between the workman who was to do the job and the foreman or rate-fixer. This was the procedure laid down in the successive national engineering agreements which were in force from 1897 to 1914, when the Amalgamated Society of Engineers terminated the agreement signed in 1907. The position of workers under the premium bonus system was somewhat ambiguous. The methods of fixing and adjusting piece-work prices and other forms of remuneration under payment by results varied widely from case to case.
