ABSTRACT
In 1962, British Railways transferred construction of a batch of new diesel locomotives from its workshops at Swindon to those at Crewe after an enquiry revealed that the costs of the Swindon built examples were 13 percent higher. This situation provides the context for a study of shopfloor bargaining at Swindon. One element in the piecework equation at Swindon was the frequent reliance on overtime working in order to meet production requirements. Managers undertook to investigate the particular working arrangements with a view to both increasing productivity and improving bad prices. The evidence so far points towards loose control of piecework at Swindon and the presence of conditions under which the effort bargain might be expected to move in favour of labour. To quantify this, an attempt has been made to construct data for the effort-reward relationship at Swindon. The railway investigation into the cost differential also points to another more elusive facet; Swindon’s reputation for high quality output.
