Evening star., 1941-09-28
The Longer Work Week

DuJ nOG nearly lar enough. a llCUle
over year ago the chosen spokes-
men of production were assuring the
country that the established policy
was to superimpose the defense load
on the normal business of the coun-
try. We were to have our cake and
eat it, too. That sweet dream, Of
course, was rather quickly shattered
by the realities. The question now
is how to save an important element
of normal business from a complete
blackout. For the normal business
that can be maintained will have to
be adjusted to the requirements Of
defense, and not the other way
around.
Administration leaders are still
toying but with obvious tongues in
their cheeks, with price control legis-
lation that will stave off the SEEM
ingly inevitable inf1ationary move
ments so plainly under way now
But there are many who believe that
the half-hearted approach to this
serious problem has been begun too
late; that the time to place ceilings
on prices was months ago, not now,
and that when defense requirements
are reflected in acute shortages of
many things now deemed essential,
nothing will prevent prices from 60
ing far beyond legislative controls.
Even now, at this late day, there is
idle talk of price control without
wage control. The Work Projects
Administration, as if taunting the
shadow Of imitation glibly talks of
10 per cent rise in w. P. A. wages,
to circumvent the rising cost of
living
A few months ago we were still
talking Of the advantages of the
forty-hour week in defense produc-
ton. In a letter to The Star last
December, Secretary Perkins con-
tended that "the shorter hours (of
the wage-hour law will result in
greater efficiency, greater per capita
and per plant production, and can
be relied upon to speed up our de-
fenSe program rather than to delay
it." Wage-Hour Administrator Flem-
ing advised the President in July, of
1910, that there was no reason to
lengthen the hours of defense labor,
and the President announced that
standards Of the Wage-hOur law
would be maintained on defense
work.
Only within the past week or so
have there been signs that the de-
fense authorities are contemplating
a lengthening of hours of work in
defense industries. Only now are
the customary, tentative and tinid
'feelers" on lengthening the work
week going out. At a recent press
conference, and later in a speech last
week in Chicago, Mr.. Knudsen limited
that "as the emergency becomes
greater" America may have to adopt
the SiXty-four-h week now in ef-
feet in Great Britain. We still lack
"the spirit" essential for all-out pro-
duction, he said. And last week Leon
Henderson, making his fourteenth
appearance to testify before a con-
greSsional committee, told the House
Banking and Currency Committee
that a longer work week is urgently
needed in certain defense industries.
He pointed out that defense labor
today is working an average of only
403 hours per week, which is scarcely
above the average of normal times.
The Government, meanwhile, has
suspended the eight-hour day for all
mechanics and laborers employed by
the War Department on defense
work. This labor is working forty
four hours a week.
AS pointed out in a recent dispatch
from Star Correspondent John H.
Cline, with the maneuvering armies
Ill iOulSLdlldy IIlClc ID llO OSCdo1OIl W
worry about the morale of the SOL
diers They are doing their part, and
doing it well. 1t is the morale at
home that is really cause for worry.
For the people are still uncertain of
what is expected of them. They are
confused by the shifting tides of
opinion among the leaders in Wash
ington, intent one day on feeding
them sugar. coated pills, anxious
next day to scare them into fits with
dire threats of catastrophe waiting
just around the corner. This home
morale will, like the morale of the
soldiers, be able to stand the gaff
when the people are told the truth;
when there is less beating around the
bush and when honest firmness
takes the place of political soft
soaping. Of course, we should have
discarded the forty-hour week long
ago in defense industries. But we
have just reached the stage of trial
balloons.
Citizens Associations