Document 0nNZoEqoJza2wZvM3DJrgg3M

178 INDUSTRIAL HYGIENE AND OCCUPATIONAL MEDICINE welfare measures against a background of ideas which are still within the memory of workers, even if they are no longer adhered to. Here is what Mr. H. H. Goddard had to say in 1922 about the "the levels of intelligence" of workers and employers: . . . the number of people of relatively low intelligence is vastly greater than is generally appreciated and this mass of low level intelligence is an enormous menace to democracy unless it is recognized and properly treated. . . . The social efficiency of a group of human beings depends upon recognizing the mental limitations of each one and of so organizing society that each person has work to do that is within his mental capacity. The intelligent group must do the planning and organizing for the mass, our whole attitude toward the lower grades of intelligence must be philanthropic. . . . Democracy is not impossible even in a group with a large mass of people of relatively low mentality, provided that there is a sufficiently large group of people of high intelligence to control the situation; and provided further that that group has the right attitude towards those of less intelligence.1 It is fair to say that this attitude was widely accepted by industrial managers for a long time, and that it is still in evidence. The welfare measures of industry were often adopted in a spirit of benevolent and condescending paternalism. And the worker who accepted these benefits from his employer was thereby forced to consent, at least tacitly, to this declaration of his inferiority. How does this apply to industrial medicine? The factory is an organization in which the employee is necessarily subordinated in many areas to the authority of supervisors and managers. In assessing the position of medicine within industry the sociologist may raise the question how medicine fits, or perhaps does not fit, into this authority relationship. He has to recognize that the relation between supervisor and employee in industry is likely to be tense and that in a situation producing tension the different partici pants look at the same fact in a great many different ways. The managerial perspective has been characterized by a British observer in the following way: Many managers suggest that were they in their workers' shoes they would be duly grateful for cleaner factories and.for canteens, for clubs and any other endeavor of the firm to promote social activities, and for all the other items for which many a welfare department holds itself responsible. For in these ways the firm proves that it is a good employer, that it does every thing for its workers; and in return it is entitled to expect loyalty from its workers and unfailing fulfilment of its expectation of increased production. And so, full of good intentions and of the righteousness of their cause, managements have their factories painted and canteens installed, club houses built and welfare officers appointed. And very often very little happens : inexplicably the workers are not grateful; they do not use the club, and the canteen they use only very little; they show no greater loyalty to the firm, nor any inclination to work harder. At best they seem to take such improvements completely for granted, as if they were theirs as of right, and, in any case, long overdue. ... At worst, they sneer that the cost has been incurred at the expense of the tax collectors and the nation or even that it has come out of their own rightful wages.2 Now, industrial medicine is by no means in the same category as canteens and clubhouses^ because attitudes toward health differ from attitudes toward eating facilities and entertainment. But historically industrial medicine has certainly grown alongside these and other welfare activities by which management has attempted to alleviate the work-a-day life of its employees. Hence, industrial 1. Goddard, H. H.: The Levels of Intelligence, in Edie, L. D.: Practical Psychology for Business Executives, New York, H. W. Wilson Company, 1922, p. 48. 2. Lynton, R. P.: Incentives and Management in British Industry, London, George Routledge & Kegan Paul, Ltd., 1949, pp. 96-97.