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Featherbedding is a practice by employees who resist their employers' ever-increasing demand to work faster by controlling and slowing the speed of their work, often in ways that are difficult for employers to detect. The term is often used disparagingly by employers who accuse employees and their unions of insisting on purposely inefficient work rules, so that more workers will be needed to do the job. Look up work in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...
It is a strategy of limiting output to create more jobs.
In the United States, the term "featherbedding" emerged after industrialization, as factory owners sought to maximize profits by pushing factory workers to work as rapidly as possible, regardless of dangers posed by the fast pace to the workers' physical and emotional health.
The term broadly refers to practices that result in sharply lower productivity, including the hiring of favored individuals who don't show up for work or who work only sporadically. While unions may featherbedding, the term also applies to nepotism, a practice more commonly engaged in by upper management. Political patronage jobs can also be included in this category. Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Nepotism This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ...
Any practice where certain workers are given jobs but not required to work, or not required to work as hard as others, can be considered featherbedding. An arrangement where workers are actively discouraged from performing at their full productive capacity would also qualify.
As a general rule, featherbedding costs money and reduces the competitiveness of the organization whose workers engage in it.
The term "featherbedding" is used and explained regarding steel mill workers in Striking Steel by Jack Metzgar.
See also
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