To depress the
wage levels he tapped new and cheaper sources of labor supply, in prison
labor, low wage country-town labor, woman and child labor; and set them
up as competitive menaces to the workers in the trade. The
merchant-capitalist system forced still another disadvantage upon the
wage earner by splitting up crafts into separate operations and tapping
lower levels of skill. In the merchant-capitalist period we find the
"team work" and "task" system. The "team" was composed of several
workers: a highly skilled journeyman was in charge, but the other
members possessed varying degrees of skill down to the practically
unskilled "finisher." The team was generally paid a lump wage, which
was divided by an understanding among the members. With all that the
merchant-capitalist took no appreciable part in the productive process.
His equipment consisted of a warehouse where the raw material was cut up
and given out to be worked up by small contractors, to be worked up in
small shops with a few journeymen and apprentices, or else by the
journeyman at his home,--all being paid by the piece.
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