Discharging the men is, of course, effective as far as that individual is concerned, and this is in all cases the last step; but it is desirable to have several remedies between talking and discharging more severe than the one and less drastic than the other.
Usually one or more of the following expedients are adopted for this purpose:
First. Lowering the man's wages.
Second. Laying him off for a longer or shorter period of time.
Third. Fining him.
Fourth. Giving him a series of "bad marks," and when these sum up to more than a given number per week or month, applying one or the other of the first three remedies.
The general objections to the first and second expedients is that for a large number of offenses they are too severe, so that the disciplinarian hesitates to apply them. The men find this out, and some of them will take advantage of this and keep much of the time close to the limit. In laying a man off, also, the employer is apt to suffer as much in many cases as the man, through having machinery lying idle or work delayed. The fourth remedy is also objectionable because some men will deliberately take close to their maximum of "bad marks."
In the writer's experience, the fining system, if justly and properly applied, is more effective and much to be preferred to either of the others. He has applied this system of discipline in various works with uniform success over a long period of years, and
