The feeling of antagonism under the ordinary piecework system becomes in
many cases so marked on the part of the men that any proposition made by
their employers, however reasonable, is looked upon with suspicion.
Soldiering becomes such a fixed habit that men will frequently take
pains to restrict the product of machines which they are running when
even a large increase in output would involve no more work on their
part.

On work which is repeated over and over again and the volume of which is
sufficient to permit it, the plan of making a contract with a competent
workman to do a certain class of work and allowing him to employ his own
men subject to strict limitations, is successful.

As a rule, the fewer the men employed by the contactor and the smaller
the variety of the work, the greater will be the success under the
contract system, the reason for this being that the contractor, under
the spur of financial necessity, makes personally so close a study of
the quickest time in which the work can be done that soldiering on the
part of his men becomes difficult and the best of them teach laborers or
lower-priced helpers to do the work formerly done by mechanics.

The objections to the contract system are that the machine tools used by
the contractor are apt to deteriorate rapidly, his chief interest being
to get a large output, whether the tools are properly cared for or not,
and that through the ignorance and inexperience of the contractor in
handling men, his employees are frequently unjustly treated.

These disadvantages are, however, more than counterbalanced by the
comparative absence of soldiering on the part of the men.