New Britain herald., 1918-11-19
1900 Employees Affected and Pay
Of Some Is Gut Half
NO CONTRACTS CANCELLED
Working Hours Cut Down SO That
As Many Workers As Possible Can
BE Retaincd--Othcr Factories Af-
fccteu Too.

In compliance with government Or
ders, the entire plant of the New
Britain Machine Co, has gone on an
eight hour shift and all overtime work
has been suspended. For the present,
II. Fl. Pease, one of the officials,
stated this morning to the press, the
night shift will be maintained but will
work on an eight hour shift, instead
of the usual ten hours with time and
a half for the extra two hours
No cancellations of government or
ders have been received by the COM
pany and none is expected. The
government has issued orders that all
contracts for gun carriages, which has
been the main product Of the
Machine company recently, shall be
filed. The object Of cutting the work
; ing day to eight hours and maintain
ing the night shift is for equity in pro-
viding as many workers with work as
is possible under existing circum-
stances. This plan will be continued,
for this purpose, as long as the pres
ent contracts or any new contracts
which may be secured hold.
Pay Cut Almost i'm Half.
In some eases this change will cut
the pay of employees of that factory al
most in half. This is true of those
working on the 13 hour shift at the
plant-the shift from a. m. to 8
p. m.-the five hours of overtime be-
ing equal to seven and a half hours
straight time. AS this is suspended
these men now work a little more
than half the number of hours form
er1y put in, and consequently will
draw a wake little more than half
of what they formerly drew.
1900 Employees Affected.
| In the neighborhood of 1900 work
I ers will be affected by this change in
| the time schedule, and Of these the
greater number are men. Until re-
| Gently female employees were engaged
| only in office work, but because of
| war orders a small number were given
| positions at light factory work.
| The new time schedules went into
effect yesterday afternoon, and the
! following notice was posted in every
department of the factory
| VERY much to our regret we have
| received official orders from the United
| States government that no overtime
| will be allowed or paid for and that
| we are not allowed to work moro
than eight hours per day on our gov
| ernment contracts
Although we have done everything
! to have an exception made in our
case, We are exceedingly sorry to say
! that these orders are final and so
! into effect imediately.
The hours of work until further
! notice will be as fellows: I Il. MI 2m.,
! .. m.-4 D. M. Saturdays, 7 a. NJ
| II m; night shift, p. ms p. M,
SIS p. M 1915 a. m; Saturday at
| ternoon, l p. m.-6. m.
Other Plants Affected.
! Although the New Britain Machine
| Co, is the first factory to make such
! changes it is expected sooa that
| several other local plants VIII take
similar action. At the Traut q HEne
| factory an order is to be issued bring
| ing all Sunday work to Il close and IN
addition night work will be stopped.
| A night shift has not been on at
Traut & Hines but overtime was al
| lowed those who cared to put III
| extra time The regular working
| schedule of SIS hours a week will again
| be established. there. Between S0ald 30
| per cent. of the work being done IN
| that plant is for the government, and
as in the case of the Machine shop,
no cancellations have been made.
| The work at North & Judd's is
| progressing as usual, and the ofhclals
are awaiting orders regarding the
| suspension of overtime or concella-
| tions of orders, although nothing to-
| indicate either course has been inti-
mated by the government as yet.
| Several other plants working on
| war work are awaiting orders which
are expected to be issued this week
| by the government. A meeting of the
| Continued on Ninth Page(