Shorter Work Week

Report Outline
Economic comdition and hours of work
Union Pressure for Shorter Work Week
Trends in Agreements on Working Time
Prospects for a Shorter Work Week
Special Focus

Economic comdition and hours of work

A relative scarcity of job opportunities, since the economy receded from the boom peaks touched in mid-1953, has sparked a revival of labor demands for a shorter basic work-week. Agitation for a 35-hour, even a 30-hour, week is certain to become insistent, irrespective of business conditions, if technological advances fufill current promises of drastically cutting down the need for human labor in many industrial, agricultural, and other operations.

The American Federation of Labor, at its annual convention last September, called for revision of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 to reduce the standard workweek from 40 to 35 hours; the A.F.L. resolution also set 30 hours a week as the ultimate goal. Although the C.I.O. is not expected to take comparable action at its convention next week, there are indications that it may do so after it has attained certain objectives now given priority. In the meantime, a number of individual C I.O. as well as A.F.L. unions have been pressing for a shorter work-week in collective bargaining negotiations.

Limitation of hours of work and maintenance of decent wages always have been primary objectives of American labor unions. When production was expanding under the impetus of the defense program, prior to Pearl Harbor, there appeared to be general labor satisfaction with the statutory 40-hour standard week. An increasing number of union contracts made provision for pay rates based on that standard, with application of time-and-a-half rates for overtime. While wage rates were held down under wartime regulations, unions worked to obtain so-called fringe benefits, such as health and pension plans, paid vacations, and paid sick leave. After government controls had been lifted, the question of pay rates again became dominant in contract negotiations; major unions sought to retrieve premium earnings lost when overtime work decreased and workers returned to the 40-hour norm.