| Summary: | In this article the author focuses on the cash register company dispute in the U.S. during 1901. During the last quarter of the nineteenth century many new series of changes in factory production techniques and shop management were introduced by the American manufacturers. These changes had profound effects on the workers and unions of the manufacturing sector. Most important from the workers' viewpoint, they enabled management to exercise greater control over the factory and its labor force. In industrial relations, the most notable aspect of the new factory system was its approach to first-line supervision. Until the late nineteenth century the typical foreman had virtually absolute control over his shop and its employees. The first-line supervisor assumed an ambiguous status between the made its presence felt on a continuing basis. The large manufacturing plants of the early twentieth century were invariably open shop. In the 1980s and 1890s manufacturers developed two important strategies for dealing with individual workers which illustrate the general trend.
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