All of these components tie the worker’s wage to production for the boss. The piece rate, for example, is the pay for the number of units the worker produces. So that the worker has to stay on his toes and follow the foremen’s orders, because they determine this variable part of his wage, which is absolutely indispensable to him for living. And this lets the boss maintain political control of the working class. To make the working class accept collaborating in their own exploitation. And this is why, when we ask for increases in our base pay, the bosses and the unions always offer increases in the variable part.

Because the more the bosses pay us this way, the more the worker’s wage is tied to productivity, and the more the bosses’ political control increases. Although with piecework we can get back at the bosses by autolimitation, which is when a worker makes fewer units than he should. When the worker makes more units, the boss gets more in the exchange than he gives back to the worker. But with autolimitation, the small amount of money that the worker misses out on is exchanged for many fewer units for the boss, who therefore loses out more.