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Week 6, Should Taylorism Still be a thing today? Is it fit for the future…

- - - - Autonomy
        
        Workers, even after employers like Ford implemented Taylorism, fought for autonomy in their workplace. One example of this is the Homestead steel strike of workers under Andrew Carnegie. Workers had next no no control over their work and workplace. Even though Homestead was touted as "the most technologically advanced steel mill in the nation," the mill's workers worked "seven-day weeks holding down 12-hour shifts, every two weeks they do a turn working 24 hours straight" (10 Days, 8:25). Although their facility was getting new technologies and was supposedly the best in the nation, the workers still worked the same poor conditions. They couldn't control where the funds to develop the facility went, so it all went to improving the machinery instead of working conditions. This exemplifies how little control workers have over the industrial facilities they worked in, since the industrialists like Carnegie are the ones that make all the decisions that affect the workers without their approval. This lack of control was a fundamental driver for the Homestead strike.
    - - Control
        
        Taylorism, however, goes directly against the worker's desire to own their work. Employers, under Taylorism, sought to control as much as they could about a worker's work. Taylor, explaining his principles of scientific management, states that "all of the work which formerly was done by the workmen alone is divided into two large sections, and one of those sections is handed over to the management" (Taylor, 209). Here, the section of work "handed over to management" refers to management's active role in determining how employers should work. Even though employers sought to gain control, the workers historically sought to gain autonomy. This clash between the employer's desire for control and the employee's desire for autonomy would likely lead to protests from the workers in the future, just like it did in the past in Homestead.