The Waterbury Democrat., 1942-04-01
BARBERING ROUND THE CLOCK


 BARBERING ROUND
 THE CLOCK
 While Congress has been trying to make up its mind what to do about the 40-hour week, the House made one little legal excursion to bring relief to Washington's over- worked barbers. Yes, Congress being the equivalent of the city council for the District of Columbia, 1t has to take up valuable time with all such tremendous trifles.
 Washington is perhaps unique in the number of It's 24-hour, 7-day week barber shops. You can always find some sweatshop open to give you haircut, shave, shampoo, or the works. But conditions have become so bad that some of the barbers work an eight-hour shift in one shop, then 90 to another and work another four or six hours. Seventy two-hour work weeks are common and nobody ever gets Q day of.
 To put the six-day week in effect, bill is pending for granting the District of Columbia Board of Bar Der Examiners authority to get up questionnaire permitting every licensed barber to vote on what day he'd like to take off. The majority vote would determine which day all shops will close.
 Grabbing at the war production drive has begun already, though the drive hasn't even got started. There are several backflres which are unfortunate, but. in the main they explain the need for a produc- ton drive.
 Principal complaint has come from large war industries that are having dimculties in getting all the parts they need. Sometimes these shortages cause prime contractors to close down for day or so. Faced with such Q predicament, they ask how they can go on 16e-hour week production apd take part in pro- duoAion' drives. The answer that the production drive is supposed to give Is to speed up production Of parts and materials so shutdoWns won't happen in final assembly plants. MORE PLANES
 THAN PILOTS?
 At the beginning of the defense effort, the Army was producing pic lots faster than 1t was getting planes and the trouble was in get- ting enough ships even for train- ing. Gradually, that condition is being reversed and 1t takes only @ little figuring to see why. Sixty thousand planes g. year IS 5000 planes 6 month or 200 a working day. It takes crew of i've to fight with big bomber, crews of two, three or four for lighter bombers or observation planes, and one for a pursuit ship. Say the average is two and a half men per plane. That means 800 pilots, navigators, bon- bardiers and radio men must be graduated every day. And next year 1t will be 1000 day, minimum.
 U. S. commercial airlines are bee ginning 10 WOEIy ~ lCble AOE 1cdE they'll be taken over" in their en- tirety for the duration. Already the airlines have had to surrender near | ly 150 transports to the armed services, leaving an estimated $50 to carry on scheduled services for which there Is increasing demand, Also, commercial airline pilots, many of whom were reserve flying officers, have been called on in greater number to handle the fer- rying of planes from factories to shipping points or actual combat zones.
 Government personnel on govern ment business now gets priority on space reservations. What some commercial airline executives fear is that the demand for transports and pilots and space will become So acute that the government will have to take over entirely, whether 1t unT1ks t0 0r mt