Evening star., 1944-07-30
Service Forces
54-Hour Week.
Starts Tuesday
$4,000 to Be Affected
Transit Schedules
To Be Reorroneed


The 54-hour week, mo leave"
order, issued as an emergency by
1t. Gen. Brehon Somervell, becomes
effective Tuesday for $4,000 civilian
and 5000 military personnel of the
Army Service Forces in Washington,
the War Department decided late
yesterday.
Intended to meet "a critical situ-
alton arising from an accumulation
of unfinished work" by imposing an
extra hour ON the workday, the order
will remain In effect, officials as
sumed, until the emergency no
longer exists.
New Transit Schedules.
The decision regarding the effec-
tive date was reached after the
Budget Bureau had cleared the new
work schedules, which provide for
overtime payments, on the basis of
time and a half for all Civil Service
employees in the lower pay brackets.
Headquarters of the Washington
Military District yesterday completed
the working out of new transporta-
ton schedules with the Capital
Transit Co. and Virginia bus lines
serving the Pentagon, to meet the
change in work hours.
Gen. Somervell's order, issued last
Wednesday, also becomes effective
Tuesday for $4,000 civilian and mill
tary personnel outside of Washing
ton and is applicable. as the occa-
sion may arise, to 1907, 900 civilians
and military personnel. The $4,000
to be affected Tuesday are employed
for the most part in such Of the
Army's arsenals and depots where
either paper work or the production
output is under par. Chiefs of the
various service commands have
discretionary power to enforce the
extra hour of work at establishments
when work lags.
Day Ends at $3.50 PM.
The new work schedules in WASH
ington have been arranged in &C
cordance with the present stag
gered" hours of all Offices coming
within its scope. Due to the critical
manpower situation burdening the
various transportation companies,
the workday will end generally at
$50 pm. Transportation officials
explained they could not provide ad-
dltional bus service after that hour.
The present span of daily working
hours for great majority of ASF
personnel starts at Z am. and ends
at 5:45 pm. For personnel report
ing between and 7:30 am, the
hour will be added to the end of
the present working day.
There will be notifications to At
the work schedules of others. For
example, those reporting for work
at am. or later, may add the ex-
ira hour to the beginning of the
day or split it into two half hours.
No Leave Modification.
No notifications of the leave can
collation. has been made, although
1t was considered probable that it
would be applied so as to avoid un-
due hardShips. The order stated
that leave would be granted only
in exceptional cases"
For some employees In the lower
pay brackets, 1t was reported, the
overtime payments actually will
mean a decrease in pay, since the
income tax would take it and more
away from them. Overtime figures
on the basis of time an a half for
civilian employees up to 81 900 year
Actually'it was said to work out at
2l.4 per cent of total pay. When
the wage, through either straight
salary or overtime exceeds $4,000,
the overtime is calculated on the
basis Of straight overtime.
Another provision is that up to
AZ hours a week, the time and a
half payment for. overtime is made
in cash; for more than 48 hours
it may be adjusted in the from of
compensatory time off. Since ordi-
nary leave is being cancelled under
the new work order, officials said
these fine points of overtime pay
ment are up to the Budget Bureau.