1922 Encyclopædia Britannica/Hours of Labour
HOURS OF LABOUR.—The decade following 1910 witnessed a rapid advance and extension in the already widespread movement in favour of the reduction of the hours of labour. This was mainly due, apart from general trade-union pressure, firstly to the repercussions of the World War and of experience of industry under war conditions, and, secondly, to the international recognition of the principle of the 8-hour day in the Treaty of Peace of Versailles as one of the “principles . . . well fitted to guide the policy of the League of Nations.”
Until the outbreak of the World War the movement in favour of the reduction of hours, and particularly in favour of the 8-hour day, had gone forward but only slowly and spasmodically. International conferences of workers passed the ordinary resolutions demanding the 8-hour day, as did the International Socialist Conference of 1910, the International Textile Workers' Conference in 1911 and the eighth Congress of Trade Union Secretaries in 1913. In 1912 the International Association for Labour Legislation asked for a 56-hour week for glass-workers, an 8-hour day for the iron and steel trades, for workers in paper and pulp mills and in the manufacture of chemicals. In the following year the Miners' International Congress demanded the day of eight hours “bank to bank.” The official delegates of the Berne Conference in 1913 contented themselves with a proposal to limit the hours of child workers to 10 daily—a proposal which the International Association for Labour Legislation adopted in 1918, with the suggestion that part of the working day should be devoted to trade education. The Berne Conference further suggested a 10-hour day for women workers.
The comparatively moderate nature of the majority of these pre-war proposals—and indeed of certain later ones, such as that of the Congress of Inter-Allied Trade Unions at Leeds in 1916, which asked for the 10-hour day, and that of the International Trade Union Congress held at Berne in 1917, which demanded that the daily maximum should be gradually reduced to 8 hours—would hardly have prepared the student of these matters for the very striking advances which became operative in the chief industrial countries between the Armistice and 1921. The advance is also to be noted in recent expressions of trade union opinion, in the movement for the 7- and even for the 6-hour day in coal-mining, and in such pronouncements as that of so influential an employer as Lord Leverhulme in England, who in 1918 himself advocated the 6-hour day on economic grounds.
The outbreak of war had been followed in all the belligerent countries by the suspension of all limitations upon the hours of labour worked in industries of importance in the conduct of the .war, whether these limitations arose from agreements with the trade unions, from legislation or from custom. In all cases the general course of events was the same. After some difficulty, varying in degree with the imminence of the threat to national safety and with the strength of trade unionism, the workers consented, were persuaded by tempting rates of wages, or were coerced to lengthen the working day. In all cases, after the experience of a period of excessively long hours, it was found that the returns from overtaxed labour rapidly diminished, and in all cases limitations were sooner or later re-imposed, not, however, reducing hours to the pre-war standards, but calculated to yield the highest return in output from the personnel available.
War experience would thus seem to have effectively killed the long-lived notion that output in industry varies directly with the number of hours worked. The argument in favour of the shorter working day was indeed formidably (and perhaps unexpectedly in certain quarters) strengthened by the scientific investigation of hours in relation to output, which was undertaken, by Great Britain and America in particular, in the height of the desperate struggle to produce adequate supplies of munitions of war. The results of the British investigations, published in the various reports of the Health of Munition Workers Committee (appointed by the Ministry of Munitions in Sept. 1915) and of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, were of the highest scientific value, and these, corroborated by the evidence of American, French and German experience, and themselves corroborating much of the argument of certain investigators whose work had been done before the war, undoubtedly were an important factor in determining the attitude of mind which is reflected in the above quoted “principle” enshrined in the Treaty of Peace.
War experience did, in point of fact, supply the scientific basis which the general propaganda, carried on for so long by the organizations of workers in all industrial countries in favour of the reduction of hours, had lacked. Such scientific data as existed had been provided or interpreted for the most part by writers on so-called “scientific management” who were concerned primarily with questions of output. Governmental investigations had to consider output in relation to the labour available, and were led inevitably to considerations of the health of workers and even of their satisfaction or dissatisfaction. In other words, whilst previous investigations were, rightly or wrongly, suspected by workers generally to be directed by motives which, if not hostile, tended at least to a certain neglect of the workers' side of the case, the war investigations were much more widely accepted as being a fair attempt at an adequate study of the question of hours in relation not only to output but also to the effect on the worker.
It need only be added here that the general result of those investigations was that a reduction of hours was not incompatible with an increase in output, arising from the improved health of the worker and his increased capacity for effort during the shorter hours worked.
The war, however, was responsible for another and perhaps even more effective factor in the eventual restriction of hours. The repercussions of the successive Russian revolutions were everywhere felt and everywhere dreaded. It became a commonplace of polemic on the subject of improved conditions of labour that such improved conditions (including the reduction of the hours of labour) were the alternative to Bolshevism. Thus scientific experience, fear of revolutionary movements and the normal liberalism of the nations successful in the war were united in support of a general reduction in the hours of labour at the moment of relief and optimism which succeeded, in the later months of 1918, the long and oppressive years of warfare.
The results of this combination are to be found in the rapid extension of legal restrictions upon the hours of labour which took place in many of the belligerent countries immediately upon (or even before) the Armistice of Nov. 1918, and in the inclusion in the treaties of peace of the “Labour Part” (Part XIII. in the Treaty of Versailles) which creates machinery for international legislation upon labour conditions, and which recognizes the 8-hour day as an end to be pursued by international action.
In the middle of 1921 signs were indeed not lacking that a characteristic of the next few years might be a reaction in this connexion. Hopes of rapid recovery to the economic position of pre-war days had been disappointed, and there was a manifest tendency to place part of the blame for this upon the reduced hours of labour. It can only be noted here that this reaction seemed likely to result in a check to the movement for a further reduction in hours of labour.
National Measures
National legislation for the limitation of the hours of labour has taken various forms. In some cases, e.g. France, Spain, Portugal, acts or decrees have prescribed a general limitation for all workers, or for all workers in large groups of occupations such as “industry,” or “commerce,” whilst the detailed application has been left to be elaborated by administrative decrees or orders. Usually these decrees are issued after consultation with the organized workers and employers concerned, and they appear to result in a considerable elasticity in the application of the law. In other cases (e.g. Netherlands, Czechoslovakia, Belgium) the act itself is made to apply to a detailed list of industries, and the exceptions are usually indicated. Again, as in the case of Great Britain (Coal Mines Act) a special Act may regulate the hours worked in a particular industry.
Another group of legislative measures deals with the hours of labour of specified classes of workers, women and children and men, engaged in hazardous occupations. In Great Britain the Factory Acts have attempted to regulate the hours of women and children, who were regarded as being less favourably situated for “free bargaining” than men, but it was not until 1908 that legal restrictions were placed upon the working hours of the latter, and then only in the case of a single industry, coal-mining, which was of a peculiarly difficult and laborious nature.
A third type of legislation secures the aim of limiting hours of labour by indirect means. In the Commonwealth of Australia, for example, and in its constituent states, the Arbitration Laws provide for the settlement of disputes in labour matters (including disputes about the hours of labour) by a process of arbitration and the legal enforcement of arbitration awards. Again, in the case of Germany and some other countries, collective agreements arrived at voluntarily between employers and workers' organizations may under certain conditions be given the force of law.
There remains to be noted the huge mass of collective agreement upon hours of labour which, though not always possessing the force of law, does in fact regulate hours very successfully in many countries. This is notably the method adopted for most industries in Great Britain, but the practice is common even in countries where legislative limits are enforced. In these cases the collective agreement is usually an advance, from the workers' point of view, upon the provisions of the existing legislation.
The analysis, given later, of the position in 1921 in the more important industrial countries of the world will illustrate these methods of limitation.
(a) Exceptions of a General Nature.—All national legislation on the subject of hours provides for exceptions of a general nature, affecting the whole field of application of the legislation, as well as for exceptions in particular cases.
To provide for the former class of exceptions, which may be classified as those arising from national necessity, clauses are usually inserted which give the administration power to suspend or relax temporarily the regulations normally in force. In the case of the draft International Convention (see later) it is provided that “the operation of the provisions of this Convention may be suspended in any country by the Government in the event of war or other emergency endangering the national safety” (Article 14). From national legislation the following may be cited:—“Extension of the working hours shall be permitted in cases of urgent public necessity, mobilization, fire, flood, landslips, explosion, grave disaster, in all cases of force majeure . . . ” (Portugal; Decree of May 7 1919, limiting the hours of work in commercial and industrial establishments).
“His Majesty may, in the event of war, or of imminent national danger, or great emergency . . . by order in Council suspend the operation of this Act to such extent and for such period as may be named in the Order either as respects all coal mines or any class of coal mines” (Great Britain: Coal Mines Regulation Act, 1908).
(b) Exceptions in Particular Cases.—Experience of the working of national legislation has proved that a priori arguments against the possibility of a universal application of the 8-hour day or even of a uniform day of greater length were largely justified, and much elasticity has been conceded in the administration of hours of labour acts. Both national and international legislation has been obliged to provide for certain exceptions in particular cases, which may be classified as those which arise (1) from considerations of the worker himself or herself, (2) from the size of the industrial undertaking, (3) from the nature of the work, (4) from the situation of the country concerned with regard to climatic conditions, character of population, or other factor rendering it abnormal from an industrial point of view, and (5) from exceptional circumstances.
(1) In the first class may be placed those exceptions which are
provided for domestic industries and small establishments where only members of the same family are employed. The fact that exception is made for such cases is due to a recognition of the great difficulty of supervising the application of any regulations. So far, international labour legislation has admitted exceptional treatment for these classes of workers. It is generally considered, both in national and international legislation, that certain persons, even in factories where a minimum day is legally enforced, should be exempt from its provisions because of their relations to the employer. Managers and persons holding posts of responsibility or of confidence are generally thus exempt, and in some national legislation sons or other close relatives of the employer are similarly excluded from the application of the regulations. Again, in all countries which have adopted legislation on hours of labour, women and young persons are exceptionally treated.
(2) As to the size of the industrial undertaking, different standards have been adopted. Whilst in Sweden concerns employing not more than four workers are exempt from the application of the Eight-hour Act of 1919 (save where such concerns are situated in towns with a population of over 1,500), in Japan 15 is the number of employees requisite to bring an undertaking within the scope of the Factory Act, and in India it was 20 until 1921, when the number was reduced to ten. Here again the great difficulty is that of the inspection and supervision of small isolated concerns, but a complicating factor lies in their frequent close connexion with agriculture, which results in their sharing to some degree in the seasonal character of the latter. This reason appears to have been influential in deciding the attitude of the Swiss Government towards the International Convention on the 8-hour day and the 48-hour week.
(3) The third class of exceptions, it has been stated, are connected with the nature of the work. The case which appears to have presented most difficulty in national legislation is the continuous process. In many industries (e.g. iron and steel, paper, glass, gold-refining, etc.) processes are employed which take long periods for their completion, and which cannot be intermitted without damage to or total loss of the material operated upon. In such cases work is organized in shifts, frequently 3 shifts of 8 hours each per day, but also frequently 2 shifts of 12 hours. Whilst the former plan achieves the 8-hour day, it does not of itself achieve the 48-hour week (for work is continued through 7 days per week). A certain elasticity is required to facilitate changes of shift, which frequently results in a week of more than 48 hours alternating with a week or possibly two weeks of less than 48. In other cases the process, whilst not being continuous in the strict sense of the word, is yet longer than the normal working day of 8 hours. The arrangement of shifts for such cases presents further difficulties for which exceptions must be provided.
The International Convention on hours permits a 56-hour week in “those processes which are required by reason of the nature of the process to be carried on continuously by a succession of shifts.”
The opposite case is where the work is of so intermittent a nature that it is felt that a longer day may be worked without injury to the worker. It is difficult to define exactly what is meant by this “intermittence.” The work of a gatekeeper or watchman who has no other duties may be instanced, but there are border-line cases which are treated differently in different legislations. Is a railway porter's or a signalman's work intermittent? Obviously generalization is impossible. The Washington meeting of the International Labour Conference tried to meet such cases by permitting the legislative authorities to allow permanent exceptions where the work is “essentially intermittent,” but insisting at the same time, first, that regulations, to be drawn up after consultation with the organizations of workers and employers concerned, should fix the maximum number of additional hours to be permitted, and, second, that the check of compulsory overtime pay at a rate of at least “time and a quarter” should be imposed to guard against any further overstepping of the bounds thus extended.
For national legislation the Netherlands Hours of Work and Dangerous Trades Act (Nov. 1 1919) may be quoted:—“Men who do no other work than that of watching may do such work during 10 hours a day and 60 hours a week. . . .” Section 25 (2b).
The Swiss Hours of Work on Railways Act similarly provides, in section 3 (2), “In the case of certain employments, specified in the Supplementary Regulations, which consist mainly in being in attendance at a given place, the average hours of work may be extended to nine hours.” The Czechoslovakian law (Eight-Hours Act of 1918) makes similar extensions for “persons engaged in irregular service such as the supervision and watching of houses and undertakings, and looking after animals.”
Seasonal industries form a further category under this heading. Both national and international legislation permit extension of the working day in industries engaged upon material susceptible of rapid deterioration, or material which is available at certain seasons only and which must be treated immediately. Similarly, industries dependent upon weather conditions are usually allowed considerable elasticity in the daily or weekly total of working hours. The Swedish Eight-hour Act (Oct. 17 1919) provides, e.g. that “if working hours are dependent in a material degree upon the seasons or the weather, or if they are of varying length by reason of these
or any other conditions, the Labour Council may, to such extent as may be found necessary, authorize a system of working hours differing from that established in §4 (i.e. the 8 and 48 rule), provided that the aggregate working hours over a period not exceeding four weeks shall not in any case be more than the number of hours corresponding to 48 hours per week.” This device of averaging the weekly hours over a period is fairly common, and has been adopted in international legislation. Article 5 of the Washington Draft Convention lays down that in exceptional cases where the ordinary rule cannot be applied, a Government may give the force of law to agreements between workers' and employers' organizations which permit an extension of the daily limit, provided that “the average number of hours worked per week, over the number of weeks covered by any such agreement, shall not exceed 48.”
In the regulation of hours of labour in commerce, similar exceptions are frequently provided for hotels and restaurants at certain periods of the year. International legislation has so far not dealt with commerce, but with regard to seasonal industries similar proposals are made in the Washington Draft Convention to those outlined above in the case of “intermittent” work.
Exceptions are usually provided in connexion with what is known as “preparatory and complementary” work. There is frequently the necessity of the earlier attendance in factories of a certain number of the personnel whose work must be done before the general work can commence; there are others, similarly, who must continue after the conclusion of the general work. Cases in point are the engineers and other workers in the engine-room of a factory. In some national legislation, and in international legislation, exceptional provision is made for such workers; limitations are, however, usually laid down, as in the case of the Netherlands Hours of Work and Dangerous Trades Act of Nov. 1 1919, section 25 (2 a), which provides that “men and women who have to prepare workrooms, tools and appliances before the commencement of the day's work or who have to attend to them at the conclusion of the same may do such work . . . during not more than 10 hours a day, provided that women do not work more than 51 hours and men not more than 57 hours in a week. . . .”
(4) The fourth class of exceptions arises in international legislation, where it has been found necessary, in order to attempt a rough equation between countries dissimilarly situated with regard to climate, character of population or other industrial factor, to permit a longer working day in the one than in the other. Thus in the Washington Convention, a 57-hour (60 hours in the raw silk industry) week is permitted for Japan, and a 60-hour week for British India, and elasticity is provided in the application of the Convention to “colonies, protectorates and possessions not fully self-governing” for “such modifications as may be necessary to adapt its provisions to local conditions.”
(5) The circumstances which, under national and international legislation, permit of the temporary suspension of the general application of the limitation of hours have already been treated. Some national legislations consider that the danger to an industry arising from the pressure of foreign competition is a sufficient warrant for the relaxation of rules in its particular case. Thus the Swiss Factory Act allows “a weekly duration of work of 52 hours if urgent reasons justify this measure, and so long as these urgent reasons hold good, particularly if . . . an industry runs the risk of being unable to withstand competition on account of the duration of work time in other countries” (Section 41). And an Article in the Swedish Act seems to have in view the same (among other) circumstances: “If the application of this Act involves such difficulties in the case of any particular work or undertaking as to jeopardize the continu- ance of the same, the King may . . . authorize an exemption from the application of this Act such as the circumstances may require.”
Principal Countries
United Kingdom.—The 8-hour day was established in the mining of coal, stratified ironstone, shale and fireclay by the Coal Mines Regulation Act of 1908, and the amending Act of 1919 further reduced the daily hours of underground workers, with certain exceptions, to seven. Article 1 of the Act provided for a future reduction in certain eventualities to six hours daily. Other legislative restrictions of hours are to be found in the Factory and Workshop Consolidation Act of 1901, the Shops Act of 1912, and the Employment and Closing Order Act of the same year. A bill was introduced in Aug. 1919 for the establishment of the 8-hour day in industry, and clauses were proposed to be added extending its scope to cover also maritime employment and agriculture, but it went no further in 1921.
In the United Kingdom legislation has played a comparatively unimportant part in the restriction of hours except in the cases of women and children. Before the war a large number of collective agreements had been made, and after the war these were widely extended. The spheres now (1921) covered by agreements reducing the working week to 48 hours or less are best indicated by an enumeration of the cases in which a longer week is still worked.
In agriculture the normal weekly hours are 48 in winter and 50 in summer. These figures, however, do not in all probability indicate the number of hours actually worked. They are fixed under the Corn Production Act, and their principal value from the workers' point of view lies in the fact that hours worked in excess of 48 or 50 are paid for at overtime rates.
In constructional engineering an agreement has fixed the summer week at 49½ hours, the winter week at 44 (this arrangement does not infringe the rule of an average 48-hour week).
In the linen industry of North Ireland workers in the bleaching and dyeing branches work, by agreement, 49½ hours per week.
A 50-hour week is the rule in one or two smaller industries, such as the manufacture of picture-frame moulding, and type-founding. In the latter case, the workers agreed to work two hours per week (in addition to the normal 48) without pay, in return for which they enjoy an annual holiday on full pay.
In the rest of British industry the rule is the 48-hour week or less. On the railways the normal weekly limit is, by an agreement of Feb. 1 1919, fixed at 48 hours (47 hours in the railway workshops). The daily hours, however, may exceed eight, provided that the weekly total does not exceed 48. The 44-hour week is worked in the building industry generally, in some quarrying, as at Aberdeen, in the manufacture of thread (though not universally), in glove-making (women) and tie-making, by dock workers (except at Belfast where the hours are 46), in the manufacture of envelopes, office and other furniture (again not universally), in bakeries in Scotland, in the textile warehouses of London and the wholesale warehouses of Manchester, and in most concerns in the cocoa and chocolate industry. Apart from a few very exceptional cases (e.g. glass-blowing, where the hours are from 35 to 37 per week) and the kaolin quarries of Cornwall and Devon (42 hours per week), practically every other British industry of importance enough to be organized has a weekly limit lying between 44 and 48 hours.
Australia.—The position as regards hours of labour is determined in Australia by (1) Factory and Shop Acts, (2) Early Closing Acts, (3) decisions of arbitration courts and boards, including those of the Federal Arbitration Court, (4) direct legislation such as the Mines Act of the various states, and (5) collective agreements. The 8-hour day (or less) and the 48-hour week (or less) are practically universal in industry and commerce.
The Factory Acts date from 1900 in Queensland (amended several times subsequently), 1904 in Western Australia (amended 1912), 1907 in South Australia (amended 1908, 1910 and 1915), 1910 and 1911 in Tasmania, 1912 in New South Wales and 1915 in Victoria. The principal Early Closing Acts are those of 1899, 1900, 1906, 1910 and 1915 in New South Wales, of 1911 and 1912 in South Australia, of 1902, 1904 (two Acts), 1911 and 1912 (a consolidating Act) in Western Australia, and of 1911 and 1913 in Tasmania. In addition to these New South Wales has an Eight-hours Act of 1916, amended 1920, and Acts of 1910 and 1916 relating to the Saturday half-holiday and Sunday rest. Each state has mining legislation regulating hours amongst other conditions of labour in mines. Generally speaking these provide that no underground worker and no surface worker whose duties are laborious or responsible shall work more than eight hours per day, and Sunday labour is prohibited.
Arbitration courts and boards were first created in 1912 in New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia and Western Australia. The Acts establishing them have been in some cases frequently amended, and the courts now figure very prominently in the regulation of hours and in the settlement of disputes. For example, in New South Wales the Industrial Arbitration Act of 1912 directs the Court and the Boards of Arbitration that their awards must, in the case of all industries other than the coal and metalliferous mining industries, provide for working hours not longer than (1) 8 hours per day on 6 consecutive days, (2) 48 hours per week, or 96 hours in 14 consecutive days. Again, in Nov. 1920 a decision of the Federal Arbitration Board awarded the 44-hour week to a large group of industries. In New South Wales the Eight-hour (Amendment) Act of 1920 established a special court to inquire into the working hours in any industry and to consider the possible economic effects on that industry of a reduction to 44 hours per week. On April 11 1921 this court reported in favour of the 44-hour week for a large number of groups of workers, including most of those employed in the building trades, in the manufacture of food and of furniture, in the iron trades and in printing. The decisions of the court were given effect by proclamations on April 16, and they came into force on May 1 1921, with the exception of that referring to the iron trade, which became effective from May 22. Again, in Victoria, decisions of the Arbitration Commission, issued on June 19 1916 fixed limits to the working day in practically all industries, usually but not universally at eight hours.
New Zealand.—The Factory Act of 1901, consolidated in 1908 and amended in 1910, fixed the working hours of men at 8¾ per day and 48 per week, of women and boys at 8¼ per day and 45 per week. Since then hours in most industries have been reduced to 8 per day and 48 or less per week by agreement or by awards of the Court
of Arbitration. The 44-hour week is now the rule for brewers, brick-layers, electrical workers, employees in the manufacture of furniture, plasterers, stonemasons, tailoresses, wharf-labourers and some others. Bootmakers have a 45-hour week and typographers 42. In coal-mining a 5-day week is worked alternately with a 6-day week (8 hours daily “bank to bank”) and in gold-mining the 44-hour week is the rule. In some cases the working day has been reduced to 7 (e.g. biograph operators) or 7½ (trackmen employed on tramways).
An amendment to the Shops and Offices Act which came into force on Jan. 1 1920 reduced the weekly total of working hours for shop assistants from 52 to 48, and permitted a maximum overtime of 100 hours per annum (not more than three hours in any one day).
Canada.—Both collective agreements and legislation have been used in the limitation of the working day in Canada, with the result that the 48-hour week is the rule in mining, on railways, in the public utility services, the building industry, the manufacture of chemicals, tobacco, food-stuffs, paper and printing, textiles, in the oil industry, in shipbuilding, carriage building and in the metal trades (with some exceptions). Telegraphists secured the 8-hour day in 1920. British Columbia and Manitoba have legislated on the hours of women workers, and Nova Scotia on those of young persons, in each case imposing the 8 and 48 rule; in the Yukon Territory and Manitoba the same limit has been fixed by law for state employees. Alberta and British Columbia have enacted the 8-hour day in coal-mines and for furnace workers, British Columbia in metalliferous mines, and Ontario in all mining industries. The weekly hours of women workers in restaurants in Manitoba are limited to 48 by administrative order. In the other industries above mentioned the 8 and 48 limits have been secured by collective agreements.
Hours worked on Canadian railways appear to be governed largely by the practice in the United States, where the McAdoo Award gave the 8-hour day. The same rule applies to the electric tramways of British Columbia.
South Africa.—The hours of labour in factories are governed by the Factory Act (No. 25 of 1918) which laid down limits of 9½ hours daily and 50 hours weekly for adults and a 45-hour week for young persons under 16 years of age. The Mines and Works Act (No. 12 of 1911) provides an 8-hour day and a 48-hour week for underground workers in gold-mines.
In addition to these legal limitations, hours are regulated by a number of collective agreements, particularly in the skilled trades. The surface workers in gold-mines and underground and other workers in coal and other mines have secured the 48-hour week by agreement. Certain categories of factory workers—the more highly-skilled—have also been able to secure the 48-hour week though their working hours are legally restricted by the Factory Act.
France.—The 8-hour day in France began with certain employees of the State in 1901, and by 1914 it had been extended to about a third of the workers employed by the State. An inquiry made in 1906 showed that certain establishments in the chemical industries, in printing, textiles, metals and glass had adopted it, but in all only some 15,000 workers were concerned. In subsequent years the substitution of the 3- for the 2-shift system gave the 8-hour day to others, notably to furnace workers (1911), and to those engaged in the manufacture of artificial silk and aluminium. During the war the 8-hour shift was adopted in many munition establishments.
The Eight-hour Act of April 23 1919 laid down that “the effective working time of workpeople or employees of either sex and of any age shall not exceed 8 hours per day or 48 hours per week, or an equivalent limitation based upon a period of time other than the week, in industrial and commercial establishments or in business premises of any kind connected with them, whatever their nature, whether public or private, secular or religious, even where they are of a technical educational or religious nature.” The application of the law was to be by administrative decrees. A considerable number of these, applying the Act usually to certain industries, have been issued. The one of Dec. 12 1919 in reference to the textile industries will serve as a type. It provides for the limitation of the working hours to a maximum of 8 per working day in each week, but allows the weekly total of 48 hours to be so distributed as to permit of a shorter working day on Saturdays. To achieve this, a maximum of 9 hours per day may be worked. In the bleaching, dyeing and finishing branches of the industry it is possible (since a short working day is uneconomic in these processes) to distribute the 48 hours over 5 days only, with a maximum of 10 hours per day. The decree goes on to make minute provision for the extension of hours to make up for lost time due to slackness of trade (for which a maximum of 100 additional hours per year may be worked), for exceptional pressure of work (maximum 150 additional hours), for the provision of rest periods and for the keeping of registers of the hours worked. Altogether some 30 groups of trades or categories of workers have been covered by similar orders, including the more important French industries (leather and skins, books, boots and slippers, clothing, building, metal trades, hats, electricity, carriage and coach building, saddlery, etc.) and some commercial undertakings (hotels and cafes in Paris, hairdressers' shops, etc.).
In addition to this legislative regulation, a number of other trades have secured the 8-hour day by collective agreement, some of them—the clothing workers, builders, textile workers in the
north, and others—before the application of the Act to their particular industry.
France is one of the few countries which has applied the 8-hour day to seamen. This was done by a decree of Feb. 24 1920.
Italy.—A decree of May 15 1919 instituted the 8-hour day for workers on railways, trams and in inland waterways, and a second of June 15 1919 did the same for the State railways. Generally, however, reductions in hours of labour have been secured by collective agreements, which now cover practically every important industry, including transport and mining; for example, since April 1919 miners have worked a 7-hour day for the most part. The larger number of these collective agreements date from early in 1919. In their application the emphasis would appear to be upon the 48-hour week rather than the 8-hour day; as in France the working day is frequently extended by an hour or half-an-hour in order to permit of a shorter working day on Saturday. Most of the agreements limit the permissible number of hours which may be worked daily in excess of eight, usually to two.
Germany.—Regulations issued on Nov. 23 1918 respecting the hours of work of industrial workers, including those employed in transport, established the general 8-hour day. These were followed up rapidly by a series of amending orders regulating exceptional cases, and on Jan. 24 1919 by an order relating to a provisional Agricultural Labour Act, which was to give legal force to an agreement, concluded between agricultural employers and employees, regulating conditions in agriculture and prescribing an 8-hour daily average during four months of the year, a 10-hour average during four months, and an 11-hour average over the remaining four months. On the same date as that of the general order mentioned above, hours in baking and confectionery establishments were limited also to 8 daily.
The hours thus determined by legislation have, in certain cases, been still further reduced by agreement. For example, an agreement concluded between employers and workers on Jan. 22 1919 established the 8-hour day with a 6-hour Saturday for workers in the textile industry. This agreement was abandoned by the employers early in 1921, however, and new agreements have for the most part reëstablished the week of 48 hours.
The hours of work in mines were fixed by the regulations of Nov. 23 1918 at seven daily for underground workers, but later, in view of the economic position, the miners agreed to work an additional shift (seven hours) per week.
Austria.—The Act of Dec. 19 1918 (reënacted Dec. 17 1919 with some changes) provided that “the hours of work in industrial undertakings carried on as factories shall not exceed 8 hours in 24, not including breaks in work.” The Act further limited the working hours of women and young persons to 44 in the week. Instructions issued on Feb. 12 1919 regulated the application of the Act in continuous industries, railways and other special cases.
An Act of April 3 1919 made similar provision for employees in bakeries, and working hours in mines were regulated by the Act of July 28 1919, which again established the 8-hour day, with possibilities of further reduction in particularly unhealthy places.
The 8-hour day was, however, established much earlier in some Austrian industries (e.g. lithography since 1914) by agreement, and has been extended to branches of industry not covered by the above Acts, e.g. woodworkers, by the same method. On March 1 1921 a 10-hour day in agriculture was instituted by collective agreement.
Rumania.—An administrative regulation of July 1 1919 instituted the 8-hour day in the national printing offices. The rule was extended to the State match and tobacco factories, railways and other State enterprises. Collective agreements secured the same end in the metal, carpentry and printing trades in Bucharest during the early months of 1919, and in the petroleum industry in Nov. of the same year. In one province (Ardeal) a Decree of May 21 1919 prescribed the 8-hour day in industry, mines and quarries, and in commercial establishments generally.
Spain.—Legislation on the 8-hour day in Spain commenced with the Royal Decree of March 11 1902, which applied to the employees of the Ministry of Finance. After the war, the same working day was extended by further decrees to building workers (March 15 1919), and to workers generally (April 3 1919—to come into force from Oct. 1 1919).
Regulations issued Oct. 9 1919 determined the hours to be worked at sea. The engine-room hands work an 8-hour day and 48-hour week at sea and in port; the hours of deck-hands vary with the size and nature of the vessel and its position. In the tropics the limit is 8 hours per day; elsewhere 10 or exceptionally 12.
Miners' hours were fixed by an Act of Dec. 27 1910 at 10 daily for surface workers and 9 for underground workers. The above-mentioned decree of April 3 1919 extended the 8-hour day to both categories. Subsequently, by an order of Oct. 10 1919, the hours of underground workers were reduced to 7, the reason given being that this was necessary in order that the surface workers should not be compelled to work more than eight.
Finally, an Eight-Hour Day Order of Jan. 15 1920 applied the Decree of April 3 1919 to workers generally, and specified the permissible exceptions. The only class of workers excepted by name from the application of this order are domestic servants, but a
second order of the same date specifies many other classes, including agricultural workers engaged in the care of livestock, and hotel and restaurant waiters. In a large number of trades the 8 and 48 rule had been secured by collective agreement before the coming into force of the above royal decree and orders.
Belgium.—An Act passed on June 8 1921 established the 8 and 48 rule in industry generally, but from the end of 1919 it had been almost universally adopted, usually by agreement, as in diamond-cutting, bootmaking and the manufacture of musical instruments (June 2 1919), in quarries (April 17 1919), coal-mines (Dec. 1 1919): on Jan. 1 1920 furnace workers secured the 8-hour day, and on Jan. 1 1921 it was extended to bookbinders also. Most, though not all other industries were already covered before these dates, so that the Act recently passed made little actual difference in the situation beyond the change from agreement to legislation. The Act of June 8 provided further that the same or similar regulations should come into force within one year for commercial workers, including employees in retail shops, hotels, restaurants and public houses. A 7-hour day is already observed in some commercial establishments, particularly in Antwerp, but the working of overtime is fairly general.
Netherlands.—An Act providing for the regulation of hours of labour and for the prohibition in certain cases of work in dangerous trades was adopted on Nov. 1 1919, and was put into force from Oct. 24 1920. Broadly speaking, the Act provided that the limit of hours of work in factories and workshops should be 8 in the day and 45 in the week; for outdoor employees of hotels, shops, offices, etc., 10 in the day and 55 in the week (with the possibility of a reduction in these hours by administrative regulations); for office workers indoors, 8 in the day and 45 in the week; for shop and pharmacy workers indoors 10 in the day and 55 in the week; for young persons employed in cafés and hotels, 9 hours in the day, and so forth. This is the most detailed and comprehensive hours-of-labour act in existence. A noteworthy feature is the 45-hour limit for the week's work. In establishing this, however, the Act did no more than sanction legislatively or re-affirm what had been already achieved in a large number of industries by collective agreement and by earlier legislation. In practice the 45-hour week means that the worker has Saturday afternoon free and that the “English week-end” is firmly established in the Netherlands. Since the passing of the Act collective agreements have tended to make the 8 and 45 rule even more general than does the Act itself.
The Act had not up to 1921 been applied to navigation, but by agreements barge and boatmen have secured a 10-hour day, and the engine-room staff on seagoing vessels the 8-hour day; the tendency is for collective agreements for maritime workers generally to be based on the 8-hour day and the “English week-end.”
Denmark.—The Factory Act of April 29 1913 was amended by an Act of Feb. 12 1919, which introduced the 8-hour day in undertakings working continuously day and night, for workers engaged on continuous processes. By decree the 8-hour day was subsequently extended to the State railways, posts and telegraphs and customs offices. The municipal authorities of Copenhagen and certain other of the larger towns have granted the same hours to their employees generally.
For the most part, however, reductions of hours in Denmark have been secured rather by the method of collective agreement than by legislation. One such agreement made on May 17 1919, and covering over 150,000 workers in several industries, established the 8 and 48 rule.
A Commission on Working Hours was appointed on Feb. 28 1919. Its report proposed the adoption of the 8 and 48 rule.
Sweden.—The Act of Oct. 17 1919 relating to the limitation of working hours, applies to “every undertaking, industrial or otherwise, in which more than four workers are ordinarily employed on account of an employer and also to every such undertaking carried on in any town or borough or municipality the population of which . . . exceeds 1,500, although the number of workers employed therein may be less than four.” The Act imposes the 8 and 48 rule. A second Act regulates the hours during which work may be done in bakeries; generally speaking, it prohibits night and Sunday work.
An Act of Oct. 24 1919 limits the hours of seamen. The permitted hours vary with the size of the vessel and the nature and extent of its voyages. For engineers, greasers and trimmers on vessels carrying not less than 3 men of these categories the hours must not exceed 16 in 2 days, and similarly for firemen on vessels with engines of more than 250 H.P. engaged in ocean or North Sea trade, and on vessels of 600 H.P. or over in more restricted trade. For other seamen the 9-hour day is the general rule, though exceptions are permitted (up to 24 hours in two days) provided the weekly total does not exceed 63. On a vessel lying in port the limit is 8 hours daily (7 in the tropics).
Norway.—The Norwegian legislature adopted in Aug. 1918 an Act limiting the weekly hours of labour in industry to 48, with a daily maximum of 8½. Most industrial establishments, including mines, are covered by it, with the exception of those in which the number of employees is less than 5 and in which no motive power (of greater strength than 1 H.P.) is used.
An Act of July 11 1919 restricted the hours of seamen (deck-hands and engine-room staff) to 8 hours daily (7 in the tropics), and limited the hours during which the stewards, cooks and other
workers on board might be employed. Exceptions were admitted for small vessels, fishing vessels, and sailing vessels doing coasting voyages in the limits of Norwegian waters.
Switzerland.—The principal Act regulating the hours of labour in Switzerland is the Factories Act of June 18 1914, which was amended by an Act of June 17 1919. The latter Act reduced the weekly hours to 48, providing at the same time for a working day longer than 8 hours in cases where a short Saturday is worked. Extensions to 52 hours are permissible if the Federal Council considers them warranted by “urgent necessity.”
Hours of work on railways and other services connected with transport and communications (i.e. the Federal railways, postal, telegraph and telephone services, and transport and communication undertakings licensed by the State) are fixed by an Act of March 6 1920 at 8 per day averaged over 14 working days. This Act was the object of a referendum and was approved by a large majority.
In the Canton of Basle (Town) a local Act of April 8 1920 applies the 48-hour week in a general way to all employees in the public services and in private undertakings. For bakers and confectioners, gardeners, hairdressers, shop assistants and some others a weekly maximum of 51 hours is determined; for caretakers, messengers, cab-drivers, hotel employees and home workers it is 60 hours, and for chemists' assistants, theatre employees and “persons who work in the houses of private customers” 54. Domestic servants and agricultural workers are to be guaranteed an uninterrupted rest period of 9 hours in every 24. Other provisions regulate the working hours of young persons and children.
The 48-hour week has been very widely adopted in Switzerland, by virtue of the Act of 1919 and of numerous collective agreements which have regulated its application. Certain industries, e.g. lace-making and home-weaving, still, however, work longer hours, in the first case 52 (in 1914 it was 60), and in the latter, it is alleged, 10 to 12 hours per day.
For the building trades a scheme drawn up by a Special Commission appointed by the Federal Department of Public Economy was accepted in 1921. Under it the weekly hours will be 50 during the period March to Sept., 44½ in Oct. and Nov., and 39 otherwise.
Greece.—A regulation issued on Feb. 14 1911 established the 8-hour day for underground workers in mines. By collective agreements the same rule holds in certain industries, especially in and near Athens and the Piraeus, and in State industries. Workers covered by these agreements include gasworkers, dockers, workers in the manufacture of macaroni, flour-millers, coopers, carpenters and ship cleaners. Greece was the first country to ratify the Washington international Draft Convention.
Japan.—Some limitation of working hours (the 12-hour day) was secured by the Japanese Factory Act of 1911, but the 8-hour day has only recently begun to be adopted. Since the war, however, this daily limit has been introduced in the shipbuilding industry and in the metal trades; it would appear, however, that the American plan of determining a “basic” 8-hour day has been adopted, rather than an actual limitation of hours. In some of the important glass works of Osaka, and in certain establishments in Tokyo, Kobe and Osaka, the 8-hour day is worked. Telephone workers in the central offices work a 7- or 8-hour day.
South America.—Either by national law or by agreement the 8-hour day for industry prevails generally in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Peru, Ecuador and Uruguay.
United States.—In the United States regulations of hours worked in industry are made by state or Federal legislation or by agreement between employer and trade union. When trade unions fix the length of the working day, they mean the basic workday, with a higher rate of pay for overtime. The theory of the basic workday is that extra pay for overtime acts as a tax on the employer to induce him to introduce a shorter actual workday. In the week ending Dec. 13 1919, for the entire state of New York, 35.76% of telephone operators worked from 3 to 6 hours overtime, 35.02% worked 6 to 9 hours overtime.
According to the census of 1910, of the 6,615,046 wage-earners enumerated in manufacturing enterprises, 7.9% worked 48 hours or less a week, 30.6% worked 54 hours or less, 60.7% worked more than 54 hours but not more than 60 hours, and 8% worked more than 60 hours. The census shows that 114,118 or 1.7% worked where the prevailing hours were more than 72 a week. These figures, which do not include agriculture, building, mining, domestic and personal service, show the number of hours normally worked by the majority of workers in the establishments enumerated. Of the 86 principal manufacturing industries employing more than 10,000 wage-earners in 1909, 20 employed over 10% of their workers more than 60 hours a week.
Among railway employees continuous service for long hours has been very common. Records of the Interstate Commerce Commission show that during the year ending June 30 1913, 261,332 railway men were reported as on duty for periods exceeding the legal limit of 16 hours, and that over 33,000 of them worked more than 21 hours continuously. In 1914, of the 7,000,000 wage-earners enumerated in manufacture in the United States, 11.8% worked 48 hours a week or less, 51% worked 54 hours or less a week, 43.1% worked more than 54 hours but not more than 60 hours, and 5.8 % worked more than 60 hours. The number working more than 72 hours was 0.8%. The number working the 8-hour day or less was 833,330, chiefly in the building trades.
The year 1915 was marked by an active movement toward the 8-hour day. Strikes for the basic 8-hour day started among the machinists in the war-boom town of Bridgeport, Conn., where they put the factories of the city practically on an 8-hour basis, and spread over the entire state and then into other states, especially Pennsylvania, New York, Ohio, Illinois and Massachusetts, and into other trades—munition industries, automobile factories, paper mills, musical instrument factories and garment trades. Over 200 firms, chiefly located in the eastern states, and among them the largest of their kind, granted the 8-hour day to their employees in 1915. Thirty thousand machinists in munition plants in Connecticut alone gained the 8-hour day. On Jan. 1 1915, about 7,000 members of the International Association of Machinists had the 8-hour day: by Jan. 1 1916, 60,000 had it. Of wage-earners in manufactures in the industries and localities studied by the Bureau of Labour Statistics in 1917, 171,978 gained the 8-hour day in 1915; 342,138 in 1916; 537,587 in the first 6 months of 1917. This leads to the conclusion that there were in the United States in June 1917, at least 1,885,033 wage-earners enjoying the 8-hour day. Probably in each case the basic 8-hour day is meant. The Anthracite Mine agreement of May 1916 established the basic 8-hour day with pro rata overtime pay for 6 days a week for all employees in the anthracite mines in place of the 9-hour day established by the 1902 agreement. The new agreement affected approximately 100,000 of the 181,899 workers reported in the anthracite mines in 1914, since the miners proper and their underground labourers, who together constitute about 40% of the total working force, were already working an 8-hour day schedule, and about 8,000 other employees were compelled by the nature of their duties to continue working 9 hours a day. In this case the basic 8 hours do not include the time going to and from employment, even on the premises of the mine; drivers must take their mules from the stables to the working place before the 8 hours begin, pay for such services to be included in the day rates.
What did more than anything else to bring the 8-hour movement to the attention of the general American public was the threatened strike of the railroad brotherhoods in the summer of 1916. As early as 1907 three of the brotherhoods in the western territory had demanded an 8-hour day, but they had abandoned this in favour of an increase in wages. In 1915 at the national conventions of the brotherhoods the question of the 8-hour day came up. Each convention instructed the executive officers to demand a basic 8-hour day, with pay at the rate of time-and-a-half for overtime. In Jan. 1916 the strike ballot was submitted to the vote of the men. In Feb., it was officially announced that 90% had voted in favour. The railroads were notified, and a reply requested. The two sides entered into negotiations, but in June the railroads refused the demands of the employees, and asked for arbitration under the Newlands Act or by the Interstate Commerce Commission. The brotherhoods rejected this, and voted to strike on Sept. 2. The country was frightened; it was at a time of crisis in international relations. The result was the President's message to Congress and the passage of the “Adamson Law.”
The Adamson Law granted the basic 8-hour day to the members of the four railroad brotherhoods, at a rate of pay for the 8 hours equal to that previously for 10, and pro rata for overtime up to the legal 16 hours. The Act also provided for a commission to investigate the results of the change. The report of this commission was published in 1918. It shows that the greatest reduction in hours was among yard crews, 11,000 of whom were placed on 8-hour shifts between March and Oct. 1917. Passenger trainmen who were already often working 8 hours or less were little affected, while freight crews continued to have runs from 11 to 13 hours. In 1919 a general order of the Railroad Administration gave to the freight service the 8-hour day or 100-m. run as a basis with time-and-a-half pay for overtime.
After the entrance of the United States into the World War in April 1917 the number of employees working an 8-hour schedule was greatly increased because of the automatic regulation of the hours of labour on Government contract work by the Federal 8-hour law. By a series of executive orders the 8-hour day on Government ship-building, munitions, and construction work was suspended during the war emergency, and the basic 8-hour day with time-and-a-half pay for overtime was substituted. The influence of this on public opinion led to the introduction of the basic 8-hour day in private industries. About 25,000 boot and shoe workers secured the so-hour week during 1917, about 11,000 cigar-makers gained
the 8-hour day. About 10,000 fur workers reduced their hours from 53 to 49 a week by strikes: in New York City about 5,000 of them secured an agreement establishing the basic 8-hour day. The United States Bureau of Labor Statistics reported in 1917 that the number of workers having the 8-hour day had increased 27% since 1914. Of the union scales in the metal trades in 1914, 28% provided for the 8-hour day, and 49% for the 54-hour week; in 1917, 41% provided for an 8-hour day, 32% for a 54-hour week.
In 1918, 50,000 lumbermen of the western states, 100,000 employees of the meat-packing industry, and about 336,000 shipyard employees and 270,000 employees of the merchant marine worked the basic 8-hour day with extra overtime pay, due largely to rulings of such Governmental boards as the Shipbuilding Labour Adjustment Board and the National War Labor Board, the general policy of which was to grant the basic 8-hour day, with time-and-a-half for overtime and double pay for Sundays and holidays. Shipbuilding employees of the Delaware river and Baltimore district were granted a basic 44-hour week with overtime pay up to a maximum of 60 hours. A decision of the War Labor Board introduced the actual 8-hour day, except in emergencies, in the foundries of Wheeling, W.Va. The reason given was that longer hours shorten the workers' lives, injure their health, and in the long run decrease production. In this case overtime was to be permitted only by the vote of a joint committee of employers and employees. For the railway shops, on the other hand, an agreement was made between the union and the Railroad Administration for all shops working single shifts of less than 70 hours a week to increase their hours on a 7-day basis, to meet the emergency of the war. On the day following the signing of the Armistice, the heads of the three chief production departments of the Government, War, Navy, and the Shipping Board, decided to issue an order for immediate discontinuance of overtime and Sunday work on all Government construction and in all establishments owned or controlled by the Government which were producing war supplies. An order of the Railroad Administration a week later provided that, wherever practicable, the hours which had been increased to meet emergencies in railway shops should be reduced to nine. Four awards of the War Labor Board in Oct. refused to permit overtime pay for Sunday work unless the employee had worked 48 hours in the preceding week.
The movement for the 8-hour day continued after the Armistice, until there was in 1921 scarcely a trade or industry in which many of the employees were not working the basic 8-hour day. Many of these work overtime. The Bureau of Labor Statistics in 1919 received reports of 1,640 agreements between trade unions and employers providing for the 48-hour week, and 315 providing for the 44-hour week. On Oct. 1 1918 the U.S. Steel Corporation granted the basic 8-hour day with time-and-a-half pay for overtime to the employees in its mines and industrial establishments, more than 250,000 men. A year later, the treasurer testified before the U.S. Senate Committee that of 60,000 employees of this corporation and its subsidiary companies, 26.8% actually worked 72 hours or more a week, 38.7% worked 60 hours or more, and only 34.2% worked less than 60 hours a week. Most of these men work 7 days each week, 82 men work a continuous 24 hours once in each month, and 344 men work a continuous 18 hours every alternate week; these are all in blast furnace departments. However, some 20 American steel plants were in 1921 running on a 3-shift schedule; the employees affected have been willing to make concessions in the matter of wages, in order to obtain the shorter hours.
The year 1919 was marked by the introduction of the 44-hour week in the clothing industry, the result of strikes and peaceful agreements. The Postal Telegraph Co. reduced the hours of its employees to 8 a day. It indeed seemed that the 8-hour day was the “established policy of the country,” as the President's personal mediation commission had stated. Twenty-seven unions, with a membership of 15,350, chiefly in the railway shops and building trades of Boston and Seattle, had a basic 4O-hour week. In 1919 the International Typographical Union obtained the 44-hour week in book and job offices by negotiation with the employers; 12 years before, this Union together with the bookbinders and the pressmen, had spent $11,000,000 to win the 48-hour week.
Investigations made in 1920 showed that one-half the employees of hotels and about one-third of the men and one-fourth of the women working in restaurants were employed 7 days a week. Except for cooks the hours were very irregular, often split into shifts, and falling at different times day after day. The average hours on duty varied from 8 to 10 every 24. The basic work week in the Central Atlantic coast district for 40% of the unskilled labourers was over 54 hours, for 30% more than 44 but not more than 48 hours, for 18% it was 44 hours or less. Of skilled trades in the same district, 75% worked 44 hours or less a week; of clerical workers 12% worked 39 hours or less, 53% worked 39¼ to 42 hours inclusive, 33% worked 42½ to 45 hours inclusive. There are no data for hours of agricultural labour for the United States as a whole. The length of the workday varies with the kind of farming and with the season. Studies made on Iowa farms (1909 to 1918) show that the average hours per weekday of the proprietor increased from 10.4 to 11.95, while those of the hired labourer decreased from 12.4 to 11.46. In Wisconsin in 1916 the average farm workday was 10.8 hours in winter and 12.5 in summer.
Hours of Work in U.S. in 1919.
(From investigations of U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.)
| Industry | Aver. Hours Actually Worked per Day |
Aver. Hours Actually Worked per Week |
Aver. Full-Time Work Week | |||||
| Men | Women | Men | Women | Men | Women | |||
| Lumber | 7.2 | .. | 43.2 | .. | 59.1 | .. | ||
| Millwork | 8.1 | 8.1 | 48.6 | 48.6 | 52.8 | 54.7 | ||
| Furniture | 8.5 | 8.1 | 51.0 | 48.6 | 55.2 | 54.9 | ||
| Bricks | 7.8 | .. | 46.8 | .. | 55.1 | .. | ||
| Chemicals | 8.4 | 7.4 | 50.4 | 44.4 | 56.8 | 52.6 | ||
| Glass | 7.8 | 7.2 | 46.8 | 43.2 | 53.7 | 51.9 | ||
| Leather | 8.1 | 6.9 | 48.6 | 41.4 | 53.0 | 52.1 | ||
| Paper | 8.7 | 8.0 | 52.2 | 48.0 | 51.4 | 51.7 | ||
| Pulp | 8.5 | .. | 51.0 | .. | 51.4 | .. | ||
| Automobiles | 8.2 | 7.8 | 49.2 | 46.8 | 50.6 | 49.3 | ||
| Cars | 8.1 | .. | 48.6 | .. | 53.8 | .. | ||
| Electrical Apparatus | 8.0 | 7.7 | 48.0 | 46.2 | 50.6 | 50.2 | ||
| Foundries | 8.2 | 7.1 | 49.2 | 42.6 | 53.8 | 50.4 | ||
| Machinery | 8.2 | 7.1 | 49.2 | 42.6 | 51.7 | 52.9 | ||
| Machine Tool | 8.6 | 7.7 | 51.6 | 46.2 | 53.9 | 51.6 | ||
| Typewriter | 8.6 | 7.8 | 51.6 | 46.8 | 52.6 | 51.6 | ||
| Pottery | 7.1 | 6.8 | 42.6 | 40.8 | 53.6 | 50.9 | ||
| Rubber | 8.2 | 7.8 | 49.2 | 46.8 | 51.1 | 51.9 | ||
| Boot and Shoe | 7.4 | 7.2 | 44.4 | 43.2 | 48.4 | 48.8 | ||
|
6.8 | 5.9 | 40.8 | 34.2 | 47.8 | 48.0 | ||
| to | to | to | to | to | to | |||
| 9.8 | 9.1 | 58.7 | 63.1 | 59.8 | 60.0 | |||
|
7.3 | 7.3 | 40.8 | 42.3 | 50.0 | 50.0 | ||
| to | to | to | to | to | to | |||
| 9.5 | 9.1 | 57.0 | 54.5 | 55. | 55. | |||
|
5.9 | 6.6 | 35.6 | 39.4 | 45.2 | 45.5 | ||
| to | to | to | to | to | to | |||
| 9.5 | 8.6 | 56.9 | 51.6 | 53.8 | 50.1 | |||
|
6.1 | 5.7 | 34.9 | 33.9 | No | No | ||
| to | to | to | to | data | data | |||
| 8.5 | 9.0 | 51.6 | 55.1 | |||||
| Paper Boxes | 8.3 | 7.5 | 49.9 | 45.0 | 51.2 | 50.0 | ||
| Women's Clothing | 8.1 | 7.4 | 48.5 | 44.0 | 48.5 | 48.1 | ||
| Confectionery | 8.4 | 7.3 | 50.4 | 43.8 | 54.4 | 50.1 | ||
| Overalls | 7.1 | 6.7 | 42.6 | 40.2 | 46.1 | 46.0 | ||
The annual convention of the American Federation of Labor in 1920 accepted the report of the committee on the shorter workday in favour of the 44-hour week, 8 hours for 5 days of the week, 4 hours on Saturday, except in certain industries where the hours should be still shorter, “that there may be no unemployment in that field.”
Six states and the Federal Government have passed laws requiring that certain wage-earners be given one day's rest in seven. The Federal law applies only to post-office employees. Most of the laws limiting hours for women prevent Sunday work by fixing a weekly as well as a daily limit, but some specify only the daily limit, and Arizona makes the weekly limit 7 times the daily limit. Virginia requires that all state employees who work 7 days must be relieved for at least two Sundays in each calendar month. The 7-day week increases absenteeism, especially on Monday. Much of the present-day continuous operation of industry involves 7-day labour. In Minnesota in 1909, 98,558 men, or approximately 14% of the gainfully employed males in that state, were working every day in the week. In New York in 1910, out of 335,000 union members in a number of specified industries, more than 10% worked 7 days in the week. Many establishments which operate continuously, such as iron and steel plants, paper mills, glass and chemical works, combine the 12-hour day with the 7-day week, and in not a few cases require their employees to alternate weekly or fortnightly between day and night shifts, working 24 hours without rest when the change is made. Telephone operators in New York State receive 150% pay for the first Sunday on duty each month, and 200% pay for additional Sundays: the amount of Sunday work varies with the locality from every other Sunday to one in every fifteen.
While more than a dozen states have made Saturday afternoon a legal holiday, few, if any, have made effective provision for the enforcement of this or other laws fixing legal holidays. The extension of the Saturday half-holiday during recent years has been due to the initiative of the employer or to trade-union activity. The short workday on Saturday is more often found in summer than in winter, and more often among clerical and mercantile than among industrial workers. In 1914 the Consumers' League induced most of the large stores in New York City to close all day Saturday during July and August. In the summer of 1920, 25 of the largest department stores in the city closed all day on Saturday during July and Aug., and nearly as many for half the day. This was found actually to pay, as the number of shoppers in summer was small on Saturdays. In smaller communities stores closed Wednesday or Thursday. This movement of a regular weekday holiday in summer seems to
be growing. In Hudson river towns in the summer of 1920, factories employing less than 50 people were found to shut down on Saturday at 12 or 1 o'clock. In the building trades and clothing industry the 44-hour week is prevalent. Twenty-five per cent of the telephone operators in New York State have the 44-hour week.
The best known studies in the United States are reported in Goldmark's Fatigue and Efficiency, which is the collection of material used in preparing the brief for the shorter workday for women, in the famous case of Bunting v. Oregon, 37 Sup. Ct. 435, 1917, and in U.S. Public Health Service Bulletin, No. 106. Other references on hours of labour are the series of bulletins on the subject published by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, reports appearing in the Monthly Labor Reviews of the Bureau and reports of the National Industrial Conference Board.
International Action
Demands for international agreement or legislation on the standardizing of the hours of labour have been frequent since 1890, when the International Conference on Labour in Factories and Mines—the Conference summoned officially by the then German Emperor—suggested a general adoption of the 8-hour day in mines. The need for uniformity in hours in order to remove at least one awkward cause of friction in international relations was voiced in 1893 at Zurich by the Metal Workers' Congress, and again in 1904 at Amsterdam. In 1894 it was the turn of the Tobacco Workers; in 1905 of the International Conference of Trade Union Secretaries. At Geneva in 1906, and again at Zurich in 1912 the International Association for Labour Legislation emphasized the same point. In 1916 the General Federation of Trade Unions of Great Britain, and in 1918 the United States Socialist party adopted resolutions on the subject. Steps were taken in the same direction by the Scandinavian and Inter-Allied Conferences of 1918.
This movement culminated in the inclusion of the international labour agreement (see International Labour) in the Peace Treaty of Versailles. The Labour part of the Treaty was drafted by an International Commission on Labour Legislation, appointed by the Peace Conference on Jan. 31 1919. Its chairman, Samuel Gompers, of the American Federation of Labor, submitted a declaration of the aims of labour, which included the following clause:—
“It shall be declared that the workday in industry and commerce shall not exceed eight hours per day except in case of extraordinary emergency, such as danger to life or property.”
Various national delegations proposed amendments in the terms, but finally certain “principles” were adopted by the Commission, including the following:—
“The adoption of an eight hours' day or a forty-eight hours' week as the standard to be aimed at where it has not already been attained.”
The Peace Conference approved of these general principles in its plenary sitting of April 28 1919. An International Organizing Committee, representative of the United States, Great Britain, France, Italy, Japan, Belgium and Switzerland, appointed to prepare for the first session of the International Labour Conference created by the Labour part of the Treaty, placed first upon the Agenda for that Conference the question: “Application of principle of the eight hours' day and of the forty-eight hours' week.”
Working Hours in Industry.—On May 10 1919 the Organizing Committee issued to the Governments of all the States which were named in the Annexe to the Covenant of the League of Nations a questionnaire, the object of which was, firstly, to secure information as to how far the 8-hour day was already observed, whether as a result of legal enactment, collective agreement, or custom; and as to the immediate intentions (if any) of the various Governments in the matter; and secondly, to elicit by categorical questions the attitude of the Governments towards the proposed limitation of the working day to 8 hours and the working week to 48.
Thirty-five Governments replied to the questionnaire. To the categorical question: “Is the Government prepared to adopt the limit of eight hours a day exclusive of rest-time?” not one Government returned a definitely negative reply. The Government of Siam did not contemplate legislative action “in the present circumstances.” In the United States and Canada the distribution of legislative power between the central and state or provincial authorities made a direct reply difficult if not impossible. The Japanese Government doubted the possibility of the immediate application in Japan of the 8-hour day, in view of the relatively unadvanced state of most of her industries and the inexperience of her workers. Similar considerations were argued by India and by Greece. Every other State replying to the questionnaire indicated its readiness to adopt the 8 and 48-hour limits. Many of them indicated that these limits (or lower ones, as in the case of Poland, which had a 46-hour week) were already enforced within their territories.
The list of these States comprised every Power of industrial importance, with the exception of Russia, Finland and the ex-enemy States, and included Argentina, Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, Ecuador, France, Great Britain, Guatemala, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Panama, Peru, Rumania, Serbia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and Uruguay, in addition to those mentioned above.
Of the States which were not consulted or which did not reply, it was known at the time that Finland, Germany, German-Austria and Russia had already taken action by law.
This evidence pointed clearly to the possibility of the successful conclusion of an International Convention on the subject; and the Organizing Committee proceeded at once to the drafting of a project to be submitted for the consideration of the Conference. The basis of this project was the adoption of the 48-hour week rather than the 8-hour day, the Committee giving as its reason for this, that “it allows more elasticity in the arrangement of the hours of work, and it facilitates the adoption of a half-holiday, or even a whole holiday, on Saturday or some other day of the week, by enabling a longer period than 8 hours to be worked on other days. Secondly, it helps to secure the weekly rest-day, whereas the principle of an 8-hour day by itself does not.” The greater part of the project was concerned with the limitations within which exceptions to the general rule should be permitted. It was clearly undesirable to leave unlimited scope for exceptions. “The mere affirmation of the principle of a 48-hour week, while leaving a wide discretion to each State to allow such exceptions as it considers desirable in the circumstances of its country, would not, so it seems to the Committee, fulfil the purpose for which the International Labour Organization has been created.” Since one of the motives of such a convention, as indeed of all international labour legislation, is the removal so far as possible of such sources of international friction as those which arise from the competition of “cheap” labour, or of labour suffering under relatively disadvantageous conditions, the Committee was obviously adopting the proper attitude in this respect.
The discussions of the International Labour Conference, which met at Washington in Oct.-Nov. 1919, turned for the most part on the permissible exceptions. To the general principle little or no opposition was offered. The Organizing Committee's project was, after some preliminary discussion, referred to a Commission of the Conference, and a Special Countries Commission was entrusted with the task of considering the application of this and other projects to tropical lands and countries displaying unusual conditions.
The Commission on Hours amended the draft in several particulars, and clauses were added to meet the special cases of Japan (a 57-hour week); British India (a 60-hour week, with a clause indicating that further limitation of hours is to be considered at a future session of the Conference); China, Persia and Siam (consideration at a future session); Greece (postponement of the date at which the provisions of the Convention should come into operation for two years in the case of certain industries, three years in the case of others); and Rumania (postponement for three years).
The Organizing Committee's omission of a provision for the establishment of the 8-hour day was not upheld by the Conference, which approved, in the final draft, the wording:—
“The working hours of persons employed in any public or private industrial undertaking or in any branch thereof . . . shall not
exceed eight in the day and forty-eight in the week with the exceptions hereinafter provided for.”
The draft Convention came before the Conference for its final vote on Nov. 28 1919 and secured the two-thirds majority which is necessary for the formal adoption of a draft Convention.
The authentic text of the draft Convention was communicated to the Governments of all States Members of the International Labour Organization by the Secretary-General of the League of Nations on Jan. 15 1920.
Since a large number of the industrial States had already adopted, by legal enactment, or otherwise, the 8-hour day, it might have been expected that the ratification of the draft Convention would be rapid and practically universal. But this was not the case. Up to Aug. 1921 two countries only, Greece and Rumania, had ratified. Some countries (e.g. Great Britain and Switzerland) had definitely declined to ratify.
In the first place, certain difficulties arose as to the interpretation of those articles of the Treaty which govern the action to be taken by States in connection with the draft Convention. Article 405 of the Treaty of Peace provided that “Each of the members undertakes that it will, within the period of one year at most from the closing of the session of the Conference, or if it is impossible owing to exceptional circumstances to do so within the period of one year, then at the earliest practicable moment, and in no case later than eighteen months from the closing of the session of the Conference, bring the recommendation or draft Convention before the authority or authorities within whose competence the matter lies, for the enactment of legislation or other action.” The wording of the last sentence has given rise to certain hesitation, but the bulk of the States members have construed “the authority or authorities within whose competence the matter lies” to mean their respective Parliaments, and have submitted the draft Convention together with the Governmental proposals for action upon it, to those bodies. In Great Britain the difficulty arose from the fact that Article 405 provides also that draft Conventions be submitted “for ratification by the Members.” It was contended that the ratifying authority in Great Britain is the Crown, and that the Government was therefore under no obligation to submit a draft Convention for the consideration of Parliament unless legislative action in pursuance of the provisions of the draft Convention was contemplated.
Secondly, difficulties arose in connexion with the actual procedure of ratification. The Treaty provides an apparently simple formula:—
“In the case of a draft Convention the Member will, if it obtains the consent of the authority or authorities within whose competence the matter lies, communicate the formal ratification of the Convention to the Secretary-General. . . .”
But this procedure was, in certain cases, found to fit awkwardly into the complicated framework of the older diplomatic practice. France considered it necessary to sign with Belgium a convention embodying the terms of the draft Convention on hours, and to add a protocol which was left open for the signature of other States. France and Belgium may thus in some sort be said to have ratified the Hours Convention, though they did not complete the procedure laid down in the Treaty. But the act of France and Belgium led to some misgiving on the part of other states members of the organization, who naturally asked whether these two countries would consider themselves bound not only in respect of one another and of any other countries which might adhere to the Franco-Belgian convention by signing the open protocol, but also in respect of other States which might ratify the Washington Convention by the procedure indicated.
Thirdly, the exceptions provided for in the text of the Hours Convention did not appear to meet the circumstances of all countries. Thus, Switzerland, which had adopted the 8-hour day on its railways and in certain branches of industry, and which, in its reply to the Organizing Committee's questionnaire, stated that “The Government prefers the 48-hour week system and is prepared to adopt this limit in factories,” declared itself unable to ratify the Hours Convention, principally on the ground that it considered its application to the small trades and undertakings of the rural and mountain districts to be undesirable. Again, Sweden, whose Government was “prepared to adopt both limitations (i.e., the 8-hour day and 48-hour week) at the same time,” was faced by similar difficulties. The British Government was “prepared to adopt the limit of 48 hours a week exclusive of rest-time.” In Great Britain the 8-hour day and 48-hour week (or less) are all but universal. Yet the Minister of Labour declared that the Government was unable to ratify because of existing collective agreements governing the working of the railways, which permit overtime in certain cases which are not provided for in the Convention. The same or similar circumstances delayed or prevented ratification by Denmark, Holland, Norway and possibly other States.
Other factors making for non-ratification were the disturbed economic state of post-war Europe, and a reaction both in Government circles and in public opinion, as to the wisdom of shorter hours of labour in view of the need for greater production. The failure of the Russian revolutionaries to establish a satisfactory social system, the crushing of the attempts of their sympathizers in Hungary and Germany, and the failure of great strike movements in France, Great Britain and elsewhere, had moderated the fears of revolutionary action which were a factor in the creation of the International Labour Organization in 1919.
Working Hours at Sea.—The Washington Draft Convention was applicable to “industrial undertakings” which were defined partly by enumeration and partly by exclusion. The line of demarcation between industry on the one hand and commerce and agriculture on the other was left to be drawn by the individual States, and the whole question of the application of the 8 and 48 rule to maritime and inland navigation was deferred for the consideration of a special meeting of the Conference. The preparations for this meeting were made by the International Labour Office. Questionnaires were sent to the States members of the International Labour Organization, in order to establish the existing position with regard to the hours of labour worked at sea and on inland waterways, and to elicit the views of the Governments as to the establishment in these spheres of the 8 and 48 rule.
The principal maritime countries replied unanimously in favour of international regulation of the hours of labour on board ship, but in most cases with considerable caution with regard to the 8 and 48 rule, which is clearly more difficult of application under sea conditions. On the whole, however, the evidence was again in favour of the possibility of the conclusion of a Convention upon the subject, and the International Labour Office, basing its work upon the replies of the Governments to its questionnaire, elaborated a draft for submission to the Conference.
The second meeting of the Conference took place at Genoa, June 15-July 10 1920. The delegates attending it, whether representing Governments, employers' organizations or workers' associations, were predominantly men experienced in maritime administration or practice. But the result was indecisive. The draft prepared by the International Labour Office was referred as at Washington, to a special commission, and after being amended it was submitted to the full Conference, which approved it by a vote of 48 to 25; the two-thirds majority necessary for formal adoption thus was not attained, though by a very narrow margin.
The questions of the hours of labour in the fishing industry and in inland navigation were dealt with separately by the Conference. In both cases a recommendation was agreed upon, by the terms of which the States members were urged to adopt legislation limiting in the direction of the 8-hour day and 48-hour week the duration of the labour concerned.