Five Day Week

Front matter

Five Day Week

COMPILED BY LAMAR T. BEMAN, A.M., LL.B. Attorney at Law, Cleveland, O.

NEW YORK THE H. W. WILSON COMPANY 1928

Introduction

For a number of years there has been occasional discussion of the five day week in business and industry. The quite general adoption of the five and a half day week in offices, and in stores during the summer months, Saturday afternoon more often being the one made a half holiday, has led some to doubt the wisdom or profit in keeping their places open for the half day. For several years many of the religious leaders among the Jewish people have urged a universal five day work week, so that their Sabbath might be respected and their people be given an opportunity to attend their religious services. In the fall of 1926 Henry Ford announced that his plants would close all day Saturday and that in the future his workmen would be employed only five days a week. This announcement was generally understood to mean that there would be no reduction in wages, but that the men would be paid for their five day week the same weekly wages they had formerly received for a six day week. The American Federation of Labor, meeting in Detroit in national convention shortly after this announcement and understanding it to mean five days' work with six days' pay hailed it with enthusiasm and adopted it as their goal or objective. It was natural and logical for the federation to take this action, for their former objective, the eight hour day, which had been set by organized labor forty years before, had now become quite generally recognized and adopted.

In the fifteen months that have now passed since Mr. Ford made his announcement his plants have been largely shut down to await the development of the new model of car he is to make. Many of his employees have had only one or two days' work a week during all this time. It is reported that the men who have been working the five day week have not been receiving six days' pay. Outside of the Ford plants very few industries have adopted the five day week, and most of these are engaged in the manufacture of clothing, furs, shoes or foods. None is employing men who are making any of the metal products.

There has been considerable discussion of the five day week in the newspapers and periodicals. The employers seem to be practically unanimous in strong opposition to it, as they were a few years ago to the eight hour day. Most of the labor leaders favor the shorter week, but their support of it seems to be more temperate and more in a spirit of friendly cooperation. with the employers than were their efforts to secure the eight hour day. Clergymen of many different denominations have expressed themselves on the subject, just about all of them favoring the shorter week, though several state plainly that it must be undertaken as an avowed experiment. Statesmen have been silent on the subject, not trying to create public opinion but preferring to follow it, waiting to see which way the wind will blow before they set their sails.

Lamar T. Beman

December 19, 1927

Briefs

Resolved: That the five day week should be adopted in all American industries.

Introduction

The meaning of the question

The question contemplates the five day week as being put into effect in a practical and business-like way.

It must be put into effect gradually, so as not to disturb business conditions.

In continuous industries some workmen would have to work on Saturdays and Sundays, but all employees would have two consecutive days off each week.

Labor is not to be penalized.

Where the eight hour day prevails it is not to be abandoned, nor are the hours of work to be increased.

The weekly wages are not to be decreased.

The importance of the question

The five day week for workmen has been widely discussed since Henry Ford made his announcement in the fall of 1926.

It has been made the objective of the American Federation of Labor and of the Canadian Trades and Labor Congress.

Affirmative

There are serious evils in our present industrial system.

American industry is not organized on a scientific basis.

Much man-power is continually lost. (Chase, The Tragedy of Waste. p. 126-44).

There are too many workmen in many of the trades and occupations; for example, there are too many coal miners, so that many of them do not get more than a hundred or a hundred and fifty days' work in a year.

The tremendous labor turnover, sometimes more than 100 per cent a year, keeps many men from a full year's work.

Industry is so organized that the workers in the seasonal occupations lose much time.

Much capital is unwisely invested or nonproductive.

It has been estimated that if all the shops and factories were run to their full capacity, they could produce in six months all the goods that could be sold in a year.

Too much American capital is continually being invested in foreign countries.

Both capital and labor have tried to relieve the results of these conditions by resort to monopoly.

Capital has been very largely successful, most of the manufactured goods selling at prices fixed unnaturally and arbitrarily.

Labor has been less successful, but the closed shop, especially the closed

shop with a closed union, often effects that result.

These conditions are a great hardship to the general public, especially to the farmers, who are both capitalists and laborers, who are so scattered that they cannot get together and organize, and who must always produce a surplus and are therefore unable to secure a monopoly price for their products.

American industry is not stabilized.

Periods of industrial depression are of frequent recurrence, sometimes of several years in duration, and generally produce a condition of extensive unemployment.

Unemployment produces frightful hardships among the working people, reducing vast numbers of honest workmen to poverty and causing suffering, sickness and often death in their families for want of the necessities of life.

Unemployment disrupts and dislocates industry, causing establishments to lose old and trusted employees who get work elsewhere and to lose markets it has taken years to gain, and causing many smaller firms to liquidate or go into bankruptcy.

American industry is not prepared for any emergency.

During the World War there was an acute shortage of coal and at the same time many of the mines, according to William G. McAdoo, were making 2000 per cent profit a year.

The operation of the American industrial system is not securing industrial justice.

The wealth of the country is being rapidly centralized in the hands of a very few people.

Two per cent of the people now own more than 60 per cent of the total wealth.

About five hundred men dominate and control all American industry.

The percentage of renters and of mortgaged homes is increasing.

The middle class is disappearing.

These conditions are fast growing worse.

Though the United States is the richest country in the world, having about 40 per cent of the world's wealth with only about 6 per cent of its population, still there is a large amount of poverty. (Hunter, Poverty, and New Encyclopedia of Social Reform. p. 933 et seq.).

Millions upon millions of dollars are spent each year to alleviate poverty, and but little money or attention is ever devoted to eradicating it.

The conditions of modern factory work put a severe strain upon the workers.

Most industrial work is done at high speed machinery which necessitates a continued high pitch of attention that is very exacting and exhausting.

Much of the work at a machine is so monotonous as to be depressing and stupifying.

Work in shops and factories must often be done where noise, heat, gas

or dust produce a severe nervous strain.

Speeding up of industry, often called sweating, has recently been carried to such an extent that a workman now very often turns out two or three times as much as he did a few years ago.

Preventable accidents in shops, factories, mines and on railroads kill, maim or injure hundreds of thousands of workers each year.

The twelve hour day is still in vogue in many industries.

Workmen in cities must spend one or two hours a day on street cars or busses during the rush period, most of them being compelled to stand up, crowded together, in bad air, thus extending their hours of confinement and strain.

Wages are generally so low a workingman cannot have the pleasures, comforts and satisfactions of life which his labor has produced and which he sees others enjoy, nor can he give his children the education or the start in life he wants them to have.

Many workers suffer from mental and physical fatigue, age prematurely, become worn out at forty-five or fifty, and die before their time.

Worry, discontent and despair blight the lives of many workmen.

The welfare of the country, the permanence of our institutions, and the future of the race are endangered by these conditions.

Fatigue, nervous strain, worry, discontent and want of the necessities of life cause most of the evils from which mankind suffers.

These things are the leading causes of crime, of which this country has more than any other nation in the world.

They cause insanity and suicide, both of which are increasing in this country.

They are a leading cause of the organic diseases which are steadily taking away a large part of our people in the prime of their lives.

They are one cause of the falling birth rate, of the increase in divorces, and of the increase in unmarried people.

American citizenship is being impaired by these conditions.

Workers do not have the time, the peace of mind, or the strength to share in the culture of the time.

It is impossible for them properly to discharge their civic duties, to understand public problems, to register and vote.

Religion is slowly but surely losing its hold on our people.

Timely words of warning are coming more and more frequently from the best minds in the world.

Almost forty years ago Thomas H. Huxley, the great scientist, uttered a vigorous warning. (Nineteenth Century. 27:862-3. May, 1890.)

More than twenty years ago H. G. Wells uttered a similar warning. (The Future in America. p.152).

Seven years ago the Commission on Inquiry of the Interchurch World Movement issued a startling report on the steel strike of 1919, exposing the long hours of work, the low rates of wages, the high rates of dividends, the amount of water in the stock, the enormous surplus laid aside, and the hostility to unionism, going to the extent of employing spies to join the unions and report to their employers.

Dean Inge has recently declared we are witnessing the suicide of a social order. (Century. 110:374. July, 1925).

In 1922 G. Stanley Hall declared that never have there been so many people starving for the want of the bare necessities of life. (Century. 104:830. October, 1922).

Irving Fisher has said that the big majority of the American people are having a hard time making ends meet. (Literary Digest. 95:8. December 10, 1927).

President Coolidge has said that there is a considerable class of unskilled workers who have not come into full participation in the wealth of the nation. (Address dedicating

the Wicker Memorial Park, June 14, 1927).

H. G. Wells has recently declared that the ship of civilization is sinking now. (Danger Zones of the Social Order. p. 7).

Professor William McDougall has said that the American nation is speeding gaily down the road to destruction. (Is America Safe for Democracy? p. v).

Benjamin Kidd has declared that civilization is scarcely more than glorified savagery. (The Science of Power. p. 127).

Francis Gribble has said that civilization is deliberately committing suicide. (Ninteenth Century. 85:888. May, 1919).

The five day week is a wise and desirable remedy for these evils.

It will make a start toward placing industry on a scientific basis.

It will make possible a better utilization of the man-power of the country.

It will fix hours of labor more in accord with the productivity of workmen.

It will increase employment by increasing demand for goods, thus setting to work more men and more capital.

It will improve the standard of workmanship, which will increase profits and aid in the competition for the markets of the world.

It will make workmen more efficient.

It will tend to decrease the evil of monopoly.

Monopoly will be less necessary to survive in the competition with other industries.

It will tend to stabilize American industry.

It will tend to prevent periods of depression and unemployment.

Overproduction, which is the leading cause of periods of depression, will be largely eliminated by the enlargement of the home market resulting from the increased leisure of the working class.

It will prepare industry for emergencies and crises.

Production will then be more elastic, capable of being increased quickly in an emergency by temporarily increasing the number of employees or the days or hours of work.

It will be a long step toward securing industrial justice.

It will work, slowly but surely, for a more just and fair distribution of wealth.

It will have a tendency to decrease poverty.

By increasing employment it will provide work for more men.

It will very greatly better the conditions of employment.

Most of the evils of factory work will be greatly lessened by a weekly period of real rest and mental relaxation.

It will safeguard the welfare of the country and the future of the race.

It will improve health conditions.

By decreasing the strain on the workers and giving them more time to be out -doors, it will remedy the peculiar problems of strain newly developed by the recent speeding up of American industry.

It will better the education and culture of the working classes.

It will make it possible for them to attend lectures and entertainments, and to take advantage of the increasing opportunities for adult education.

It will encourage more workmen to buy their own homes.

It will make for better citizenship.

Workman will take more interest in social, civic and church affairs.

It will recognize the Jewish Sabbath as well as the Christian Sunday.

This will be a great benefit to the cause of religion.

It will decrease religious prejudice and racial hatred.

The five day week is a practicable reform.

The history of American industry shows repeated reduction in the hours of labor.

In 1800 a day's work was fourteen to sixteen hours and many of the workmen were slaves.

About 1830 the ten hour movement started.

The agitation for limiting a day's

work to ten hours came from the working men.

This reform came into effect slowly and gradually, and in fact, it has not yet been adopted by some industries.

In the sixties slavery was abolished.

In the eighties the agitation for the eight hour day began.

The eight hour day was quite generally adopted by 1920.

About 1923 the United States Steel Corporation finally yielded to the public sentiment aroused by the report of the Interchurch World Movement and to the persuasion of President Harding and abandoned its twelve hour day and seven day week for the eight hour day and six day week which organized labor had then been advocating for forty years.

In 1926 the five day week agitation began.

Henry Ford announced it as his policy for the future.

The American Federation in convention at Detroit adopted it as its aim and goal.

Progress has not ended now but will go on.

Charles P. Steinmetz, the late electrical genius, has declared that in a hundred years the work day will be not more than four hours. (New York Times. August 10, 1923).

All of these progressive reductions of hours have been for the best, although they have all been vigorously opposed by almost all the employer class.

They have all led to improved quality of workmanship.

The American workman is now the most skilled in the world.

They have all led to increased production per workman.

The American workman is now the most efficient in the world.

They have all led to greater consumption by the workingmen and have thus developed the great American home market.

More than half the manufactured goods in the world is now consumed in America.

None has seriously affected prices, injured industry, or harmed the country in any way.

The five day week has been tried and proved successful in many very different industries in widely separated parts of the country.

It has been the rule for more than a year in practically all of the Ford plants.

It is used in the ladies ' garment shops in New York city which employ seven thousand persons.

Two thousand cloak makers in Chicago work the five day week.

The Joseph and Feiss Company in Cleveland has worked only a five day week for several years.

Horowitz Bros. and Margareten, matzeth and noodle makers in New York city, went on the five day week in 1927.

The furworkers of Boston and Chicago use this plan.

Fifteen hundred workers in the Firestone

Footwear plant at Hudson, Mass., work only five days a week.

The five day principle is used in all public schools.

Schools recognize the fact that in work which requires a mental strain and a high pitch of attention, more work and better work can be done in a five day week than in a six day week.

The five day week has been endorsed by many of the best minds.

It is strongly advocated by Henry Ford, the outstanding industrial genius of this generation.

Bishop William T. Manning of New York city has approved it.

Edward A. Filene, the prominent Boston merchant, approves it.

Most of the Jewish Rabbis in the country have urged it for several years.

Dr. Samuel Friedman, a physician of New York city, has endorsed it as a health measure, saying it will decrease the chronic and organic diseases that destroy so many people at the prime of their lives.

W. Burke Harmon of New York city, president of the Harmon National Real Estate Corporation, has said that it is already leading more workmen to buy their own homes.

Rev. S. Parkes Cadman, president of the Federal Council of Churches, has endorsed and urged its adoption.

Richard Feiss, clothing manufacturer of

Cleveland, argues its financial advantages to the employer.

Negative

The five day week is entirely unnecessary.

The conditions of employment in this country are generally satisfactory, as good as can be obtained, and better than anywhere else in the world.

There is abundant opportunity for employment for all who want to work.

The farmers often find it impossible to get help.

Good positions in the navy continually go begging.

It will always be impossible to provide everybody with a white collar job.

The wages paid by industry are high.

They are often two or three times as high as the wages paid for similar work in northern Europe.

They are sometimes five or six times as high as the wages paid in southern Europe.

We have had no prolonged period of general unemployment as many of the industrial nations of Europe have had since the World War.

In the winter of 1926-27 England reported a million and a quarter workman on the dole or unemployment insurance.

At the same time Germany reported over a million out of work.

Pauperism has constantly decreased in this country.

There are only half as many paupers in public almshouses now as there were sixty years ago.

Six days' work with reasonable hours will not hurt anybody.

It has been the custom from time immemorial.

The farmers work long hours six and often seven days a week, and they are the healthiest of our people.

It is sanctioned by the Bible. (Exodus. 20:9).

The increase of holidays has always been a sign of national decadence.

Our industry has achieved its greatness without the five day week.

The United States is now the greatest industrial nation in the world.

We produce 90 per cent of the automobiles made in the world, 72 per cent of the petroleum, 75 per cent of the silver, 64 per cent of the zinc, 61 per cent of the iron and steel, 52 per cent of the copper, 51 per cent of the paper, 43 per cent of the lead, 43 per cent of the coal, and we use 71 per cent of the world's rubber, 57 per cent of the telephones, 30 per cent of the railroads, 25 per cent of the telegraphs and merchant ships.

We pay higher wages and still undersell other industrial nations in the markets of the world.

Shortening the days or hours of labor to make work for more men has long been a fallacy dearly cherished by organized labor.

The theory is that by decreasing the output per man work can be made for more men and so get nearer to a labor monopoly that will force wages upward.

The unions have always been strongly opposed to piece work by which each man would be paid according to his productivity.

They have often tried to limit the amount of work a workman could do in a day.

Shortening the work week will not prevent or mitigate industrial depressions.

Industrial depressions are often caused by world wide influences, and are felt over the whole industrial world.

The ablest students of business cycles have never even suggested the shorter work week as a remedy.

A shorter work week will not prevent or relieve poverty.

The causes of poverty are deep seated in human nature and in the individual and are not so easily remedied.

Most of the unemployed are not fitted for skilled labor.

More wealth, the result of more industry, will do more to relieve poverty than any curtailment of production.

Labor's policy of restricting the output is what has paralized the industries of Great Britain.

For all the billions invested in American industries to be utilized and to be productive only forty hours out of each one hundred and sixty-eight is not economical or sound policy.

It means the utilization of productive investments less than one-quarter of the time.

The five day week in industry is unwise and undesirable.

The volume of production in the shops and factories would be decreased one-sixth part.

The speed of machinery cannot be increased.

Greater speed is not practicable nor desirable.

A short time before his death Judge Gary said it woud be impossible to do as much work in five days as in six.

Reduction in output was the chief reason for adopting the five day week in the Ford plants.

The competition of other low priced cars had so decreased the sale of Ford cars in the fall of 1926 that it was impossible to market the production if the plants were running at full capacity.

The tremendous destruction of property during the war was so great that no industrial nation can now afford to decrease its productive efforts by one-sixth part.

The United States spent billions for merchant vessels, ship yards, war material and other things that were

largely scrapped at the close of the war.

The vast national debt is a mortgage of about a thousand dollars on each family that must be paid out of the wealth the nation creates, and should be paid off before we add another holiday in each week.

It would make necessary a substantial reduction in wages.

This was done in the Ford plants.

The wages of the average worker in the Ford plants were reduced between two and three hundred dollars a year. (Christian Century. 43:1354. November 4, 1926).

If this same reduction came to all the workmen in America, it would be a national calamity.

Many workmen have bought goods on the installment plan and would be unable to keep up their payments.

For the same reason many of them would lose homes that are partly paid for.

Reduced wages would mean that the workers would be compelled to buy less and so create a decreased demand for goods that would result in more unemployment and probably a period of depression.

Reduced wages would mean a lower standard of living.

Professor Irving Fisher of Yale has said that as things are now the large majority of our people are having a hard time to make both ends meet.

A general reduction of wages would mean terrible suffering throughout the country.

Prices in general would have to be increased.

An increase in prices would mean a decrease in consumption which would depress the home market and create unemployment.

An increase in prices is an increase in the cost of living for all the millions of people who now have difficulty in making both ends meet.

An increase in prices would cut off a large part of our foreign market, and so make further unemployment.

We must now sell our exported goods by underselling nations that pay much lower wages than we do.

Now, when Mussolini has just abolished legal holidays in Italy, is not the time for the United States to add fifty-two holidays to the year, if we wish to keep our foreign markets.

The five day week would be unfair to the farmers.

We now have an agricultural depression nation-wide in extent and of several years' duration.

Six years ago President Harding said, "Concerning the grim reality of the present crisis in agriculture there can be no difference of opinion among informed people."

President Coolidge has declared that "The farmer is not receiving his fair share."

The farmers work twelve to sixteen hours a day, often seven days a week, and must risk many elements of uncertainty.

The farmers as a whole are discontented almost to the point of despair.

For several years farmers have been moving to the cities at a rate of nearly a million a year.

A shorter work week would bring millions more farmers to the cities to augment the ranks of the unemployed.

Many workmen would not use their additional leisure to their own best advantage.

The Bishop of London has said that the workmen of England, if given one day off each week, would spend it in saloons.

In this country more would probably attend prize fights than would go to lectures or take advantage of courses in adult education.

Idleness always breeds other evils.

It is still true that the devil finds work for idle hands to do.

There would undoubtedly be an increase in crime.

With more leisure time workmen would spend more, would want more luxuries, and would be more discontented than they are now.

Greater spending is not desirable nor beneficial to the country.

President Coolidge has always urged thrift and economy.

Spending has gone too far in this country already, and should be discouraged.

We have become the greatest nation in the world through industry and thrift, and the five day week would be a blow at both of these virtues.

If American industry were reduced to a forty hour week, it would be much better to spread those hours over six days.

The five day work week is impracticable.

It has never been tried sufficiently to prove it a success.

It is not and has not been in vogue in the Ford plants.

The men have not received six days' pay for five days' work.

Wages of the men have been reduced.

Many of the men have worked only one or two days a week.

The announcement was a master stroke of advertising, timed just before the American Federation of Labor held its annual convention in Detroit; a typical example of high powered supersalesmanship, designed to influence other employers to undertake a condition of employment that would lead workmen to buy Ford cars they could not afford; a smoke screen to cover up the decreased demand for Ford's product.

In most other places the five day week is only partially in effect.

In some places only a part of the employees have the five day week.

The five day week is sometimes in the nature of a bonus paid in time, an inducement to further speeding or

sweating of industry without incurring the opposition of the workers.

Some establishments put the five day week into effect only in slack seasons or in dull times.

All of the experiments with the five day week have been too few and too small to prove any benefit in the system or to form the basis of any conclusion.

Any general adoption of the five day week would be an obvious experiment.

American industry ought not to experiment on a nation -wide scale.

The five day week is not universally applicable to American industry.

In some industries men can work longer than they can in others.

In some kinds of employment an hour's work is less strain than it is in others.

Some trades work more months a year than others do.

In occupations where the season is short and workmen are idle a considerable part of the year, shorter hours or a shorter week would work an injury to the men as well as to the industry.

Some men want to work longer hours than others do.

It would make the evils of industry worse.

Sweating or speeding up is an evil that would be greatly aggravated.

Unemployment would be made worse by the loss of foreign markets and decreased

purchasing power of the workers at home.

Progress would be retarded.

It is strongly opposed by the great majority of those best qualified to judge of its results.

The questionaire of the National Association of Manufacturers showed an almost unanimous sentiment against it.

Judge Gary, just before his death, voiced strong objections to it, citing scripture. for his purpose.