The Cairo bulletin., 1912-04-07
work in the morning and works un-

wife Is sick and he does not come
CIT. The mill needs a man in a GER
tain position and Jones stays and
works the night shift. The next
morning his own day shift begins
again SC he works that too, before
The goes home making total of
thirty-six hours on duty An en-
ploye of the Lackawanna Steel
Company had exactly the experience
described and in October, 1910,
worked fifty-siX of the seyenty-two
hours between Saturday and Tues
day morning, period during which
a brlcklayer, a plumber or a com
positor would have worked twelve
hours, four Of them on Saturday
and eight on Monday
These are, of course, the excep-
tional eases. But there is very
large class Of Workmen in the steel
) industry, many thousands of them
( thfou& e. nut tle country, who work
consacutNsly either eighteen hours
, or twenty four hours regularly
every two weeks This is 50 be-
cause the two ehiits alternate work
ing nights. When the plant works
only six days this can be accom-
plished easily but in the seven day
plant it is made possible only through
| the institution known as the long
turn. The general custom is for
1 the day shift to get in line for the
night by working a full twenty -four
| hour period Sunday and Sunday
night, finishing Monday morning.
The Federal Bureau of Labor in
Nest!gators found that In blast
furnace plant nine-tenths OF the am
Moves work seven days a week. IL
1909, 1922 wage-earners were
, mployed in blast furnaces. Nine
tcnths CT this number Is 81 1886,
which is the number of men in blast
/ furnaces who worked either eigh-
| teen or twenty-four hours once OF
twice in each month in 1909. But
| that is not all Thel We're CAT open
| lea tn furnaces in 1909 with over
$1,000 men tending them, Many OF
tlem worked part OF every Sun
/ cay and considerable proportion
ere REGULAR twelve hour. seven day
woYkn,cn. - We c1uid rs elt n the
total number of sevel day workmeH
lin 1910, we should find it to have
, been, | think, we'll over $4,000. One
half the steel workers in America
have regular twelve hour day
One-thlrd Of those actually engaged
in the manufacturing processes, The
United States Bureau of Labor says
worked in 1910 not only twelve
hours a day but seven days a week
Nor are the twelve hour jobs easy
ioEs IN which th,re are long periods
tol idleucss 1t is hard work tina
steel workers have to perform. 1
does not need medical authority Il
convince one that the work and tn
heat and the long hours of duty, vii
have IN the long run serious conse
lquenGes. net man ffty-sil
iyCars old in PittSburgh in 1908 whit
worked a twc!ve-hour day. n | saw
him again last winter when it wa
a slack time AMI he wat getting twt
or three days OFF every week, H
had not worked long turn" TO
th~ae months and though he wa
three years older he looked tel
years younger.
But suppose there We're no physi
cal indications OF oyarstrain the bi,
fact remains that a twelve hou
schedule denies man all tru
leisure, 1t is not leisure for a MAJ
to sit on q bench In the steel mil
Iwaiting for his turn. A workman
has a right to spend his leisur
hours outside the mill yard.
There are many of the compan
heads and plant managers who ar
opposed to a twelve hour schedule
How many there may be who hav
lab0red manfully in directors meet
ings against a stone wall of opposi
ton we may never know. But Their
are steel men, nevertheless, who no
only do not apologize but activel
defend the existing state Of affairs
The manager of one Of the two o
three largest steel plants in Americ
said to me: "A man Is lot bette
> working those extra four hours tina
he is loating. Society has not ye
founo anything profitable for him t
do in his leisure time"
But there Is coming to be a d ffel
ent attitude In regard to the sever
day week Managers may excuse
but they seldom advocate 1t an
more and there has arisen move
ment within the last two years thu
Ise9ms to mean that the steel indus