SHORTER HOURS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 234, 3 October 1932, Page 9

SHORTER HOURS.

BUT MORE WORK. THE ITALIAN PLAN. SUPPORT IN MANY COUNTRIES. The suggestion of the Italian Government for the calling of a special session of the International Labour Conference to discuss the reduction of hours of •' work in industry as a means of relieving unemployment is the culmination of a general agitation. Opinion 011 the Continent, stated an article in the Manchester "Guardian," has always been much stronger for this method of treatment that it has been in England. Recently there had been a movement in | the same direction in the United States. | Mr. Hoover has taken up the idea, which , has been advocated by the American unions and by many business men, and the adoption of the five-hour.day or its ( equivalent- in shorter working days is now being recommended as a means of employing 3,000,000 men in the coming winter. ' The International Labour Conference ' in May passed a resolution in support ' of the reduction of hours of work without reducing wages, and calling for a study of the 40-hour week 'question. The Italian suggestion is that a special conference should be called 011 the proolem in preparation for • the World Economic Conference. The governing body of the 1.L.0. is to discuss the pro- ] posal. Italian Opinion. 1 One of the most important Italian I industrialists, Signor Agnelli, president 1 of the Fiat motor manufacturing firm, has recently declared that the reduc-j < tion of working hours, together with a 1 proportionate increase in wages, is the best means of reducing unemployment and overcoming the depression. Ihe economic depression, he argued, was due to a disproportion between production : and consumption; in other words, be- , tween production and purchasing power. Assuming that each of the '25,000,000 unemployed workers in the world had , been receiving a wage of one dollar a day, the amount of wages in circulation had fallen by 7,500,000,000 dollars a j year, without taking account of reduc- . tions in earnings from short time. Productive capacity had increased, and as technical progress could not be suppressed, he suggested that the formula of economy of labour should be revised to produce the maximum in the minimum time, and shorten hours for each worker without reducing the number of workers. Assuming that 25 per cent of the workers' were unemployed, it would be necessary to reduce hours from 48 to 36 in,the week to maintain the same , production. At the same time wages must also be increased by 33 per cent, ( the same weekly wage being paid for , the shorter week. This would mean a great increase in the total of wages. ■ Purchasing power would increase daily, ■ and within a year it would be sufficiently 1 high to enable the world to make a go&d < recovery. He urged that action to this ] end should be taken internationally. i Something of the same -line of argu- , ment has been supported 'by Signor j Bruno, Biagi, president of the Fascist ' .Confederation, of Industrial Workers, ■ and other responsible Italian industrial j leaders.

A German Inquiry. One of the most interesting recent contributions to the discussion has been made in an inquiry carried out in Germany as to the possible effects of the' introduction of the 40-hour week, which was recommended by the Bruning Government's Emergency Decree of June 5, 1931. The inquiry covers only manual workers. First it deals with the number of unemployed for whom-work could be . found by the reduction of hours. In March 2,453,000 workers were employed on full time (48 hours a week on an average), without counting those employed in small undertakings. A general reduction of the working week from 48 to 40 hours would permit the number of wage-earners to be increased by 20 per cent —that is, by about 490,000 persons. Account would have to be taken of the workers employed in the following trades, which are not covered by the statistics used: Railways, fulltime workers in traffic and transport services, 160,000; public administrative departments, full-time workers, 368,000; building workers (including carpenters and house painters), 400,000. By reducing the working week from 48 to 40 hours for these 928,000 workers it would be possible to give employment to 185,000 unemployed workers. The general introduction of the 40-liour week would thus provide work for about 675,000 new workers, from which number it would be necessary to deduct a certain percentage, say, 20 per cent, for exceptions allowed in case of necessity, so that the total number of persons for whom employment could be found would be about 500,000. In the second part of the report 1 a comparison is made between the statistics of total unemployment and short time, and it is concluded that short time increases in proportion with total unemployment, this being so especially in the metal trades, mining, the textile trades, the clothing industry, food and drink trades, and to a lesser extent in the printing trade. The British Trades Unions' Congress also advocated the reduction of hours as a palliative for unemployment.