Big Organisations and People

Abstract

The individual and large organisations are basically incompatible but as large organisations are essential to modern life, we have to try and fit in the individual as comfortably as possible. Most of us, (we are all individuals), however, regard small as beautiful, and who doesn't look back nostalgically at the days when small was beautiful and we were real people who were dealt with by real persons? What housewife does not hanker for the traditional family grocer who knew the type of bacon she always bought, and told her when there were special items likely to appeal to her, unlike the supermarket, where she is baffled by the cornucopia of foods displayed and where no advice is offered?Look how workmen in this area and others in similar large-standing industrial manufacture were proud to work all their lives for one employer. No matter how lowly their position in the firm, all were known to the boss, the owner, and although their wages were low and their rights few, his door was always open to anyone employed there to enter.Then there were the craftsmen, or little mesters, as they were known, in the silver and cutlery trades in Sheffield, men skilled in producing fine, hand-made products, but independent too, so that they sold their labour to no man but rented a workshop and perhaps employed one or two others, or worked alone, producing parts of knives or silverware to be marketed by larger firms. Such little mesters were rarely well off, and lived little differently from workmen employed by others. Sheffield, of course, was a real stronghold of the individual, for in addition to the little mesters in silver and cutlery, there were also little mesters in steel who rented a hammer, or a rolling mill, or a crucible furnace, from a larger employer and carried out work for that employer at a contract price, making their own pay arrangements for those working for them; but, all this, of course, took place in the days of low wages, low costs generally, low interest rates, low demand, and low production. Rising aspirationsmerger for survivalSince then, rising aspirations have increased demand. For instance, the possession of motor cars has risen in the last ten years from 20 per 100 of population to 26 last year and, at the same time, homes owning telephones have increased from 33.6% of households to 54~7%. If these rising aspirations were to be met, then costs had to be kept down and the only answer was mass production.As a result of these trends, I have been concerned with mergers in three fields, namely: the steel industry, local government and education.In the steel industry, multiple site operation had to give way to larger, more efficient sites where flow line production could enable optimum use of mechanical handling equipment. From 1970From -1972 in my company, we moved from thirteen sites to three, including one new site so that at the end of the time, we had nine gate men for three sites, instead of 39 on the previous 13. So 30 gate men lost their jobs and as people are always the first casualty of a merger,...