Douglas Bissell (asker) Apr 17, 2018:

@Mark, good to hear from you after so long

Mark Robertson Apr 17, 2018:

Wikipedia say:
As a term and as a common form of labor, 'piece work' had its origins in the guild system of work during the Commercial Revolution and before the Industrial Revolution. Since the phrase 'piece work' first appears in writing around the year 1549, it is likely that at about this time, the master craftsmen of the guild system began to assign their apprentices work on pieces which could be performed at home, rather than within the master's workshop. In the British factory system, workers mass-produced parts from a fixed design as part of a division of labor, but did not have the advantage of machine tools or metalworking jigs.[citation needed] Simply counting the number of pieces produced by a worker was likely easier than accounting for that worker's time, as would have been required for the computation of an hourly wage.

Mark Robertson Apr 17, 2018:

Trabalho a feitio is where x provides y with materials to manufacture something, but retains ownership of the materials. Y then uses the materials to make shoes, for example, and then delivers the shoes to x, who sells them. Y is paid for his work in the making of the shoes. So, it is a type of piecework. I have not found a specific equivalent term in EN.

Paulo Marcon Apr 17, 2018:

Douglas This post might be of some help: https://por.proz.com/kudoz/english_to_portuguese/engineering...