The Bismarck tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, N.D.) 1916-current, 1930-08-14
Dividing the Working Time

ru... ,.ve been q lot of suggestions of how to take
IN the slack in unemployment ana save tfe country ~"
going inevitably into communism, but Henry Foro mas
offered a good one. 1t is captains OF INDUSTRY IN lac''
who must solve this problem of providing jobs 1of the
mon who are bowled out of employment by efficiency
and Standardization, which is the present Dig nauonal
nroblems 1t is an experts task. Ford and such men at
.,o head IF industry are the ones to understand and
solve the riddle.
Ford saws that workers must be put on a lo-monthS
wear. the other two months to be devoted, to rest IN Ihc
summer, when factory work is difficult.
Union workers have suggested that a fivc-day week
mr. a week of reduced hours, as six to a day, would solve
the problem. Operation of machinery which standard
,zes the output and overproduces under present hours
could thus be put on a basis of shifts which would alb
sorb the slack in employment. All workers would work
Of the Ford scale of high wages and would be able on
+neir earnings to devote more hours to recreation.
The Ford idea punches the idle time. That would per-
NIT the workers to enjoy vacations OF concentrated per-
iods, when they could go around the country on ao'omo-
bile tours and learn the wonders of the Acknowledgement
and see it's scenic wonders. 1t would broaden the ma
tional mind, make better Americans. Shorter hours daily
would merely permit local use Of the idle time. Ihey
would not be broadening. merely mitigating suoter1ueeS'
Perhaps. also, as a matter of overhead, the shorter hours
would not be as advantageous as the proposed su"l'"ei
idleness Of two months.
Arthur Brisbane suggests that there Is "a problem OF
saving involved in the Ford proposal. So there is. He
saws the squirrels and Indians know what the plan in
wolves. The squirrels hoard nuts, the Indians dry penn
mican. American labor can learn how to do 1t.
The fact is that American labor years ago knew how
to meet this situation. That was before the tin can era.
Housewives of workers preserved a lot of food Tor the
slack season of winter. Workers families lived on the fat
of the land in dull times. Work was their cash crop.
Preserving food was a mode OF living, which Is what
farming used to be considered to be.
Brisbane looks at the problem from the arithmetical
the ten months it is up to the worker to save a sixth OF
his income.
The possibility of nurturing communism Is foreseen
by Brisbane. He says the Ford proposal is just what has
been the policy in the garment and cloak industry. The
employers in that big industry have been compelling
workers to take off time during the summer, but these
workers have been able to save, and the months taken
off without pay, sometimes half of the year, have tended
to make communists of the employees.
Perhaps it would be wise to adjust pay so that the
idlers, enjoying the two-months vacation proposed by
Ford, would receive income at the time of idleness.
Anyhow, work is too much monopolized by those who
have jobs to insure a healthy condition of the nation in
the face of unemployment. Some means of a fairer divi-
sion must be found if the national industrial system is
to survive successfully.
The industrial problems of this country, in fact. are
not congress, but men like Ford, who must set this coun-
try Alright if it is to keep an even keel. Perhaps it were
more to the point to say "f it is to survive"