HOURS OF WORK

Evening Post, Volume CXXI, Issue 36, 12 February 1936, Page 16

HOURS OF WORK

GENEVA CONFERENCE

PRINCIPLES LAID DOWN

THIS YEAR'S SESSION

!In 1919 the constitution given to the International Labour Organisation at its creation laid down as one of its principles that all industrial.communities should endeavour to apply "the I adoption of the eight-hour day or the forty-eight-hour week." In 1935 the general conference of ■' ! the International Labour Organisation I voted a convention affirming the prin- j ciple of the forty-hour week without I any decrease in the standard of living of the workers. This simple comparison clearly shows the rapid development of the problem of the reduction of hours of work, both from the standpoint of a means of alleviating unemployment j and as a consequence of continual proj gress. It also shows the important progress achieved during the past year by the organisation in one of the vital spheres of its activity. The forty-hour week is henceforth the goal of its efforts. Thus, after having realised the first application of this principle, by the adoption of a convention in a new branch of the glass-making industry, it is preparing similar draft conventions to apply the reform internationally in public works, jth i building and construction industry, i iron and steel, coal mines, and the texj tile industries respectively. lAt its 1936 session, which opens on j June 4 in Geneva, the International i Labour Conference will decide on the i a'pplication of the forty-hour week to ! these various industries. The questions of the reduction of hours of work in the printing and bookbinding industries and in the chemical industry have been held over for probable inclusion on the agenda of the 1937 session of the conference.. Moreover, the problem of the reduction of hours of work in the branches of the glass-making industry which are not covered by existing conventions is being studied. Although exact figures are not available for all countries for the glassmaking industry, the, printing and bookbinding industries, the textile, mining, iron and steel, building and contracting, and public works industries, yet it is evident that they already include several tens of millions of workers directly affected by the action of the International Labour Organisation in the field of the limitation of hours of work. EQUALITY OF TREATMENT. To the workers mentioned above must be added seamen who, in this connection, have for so long a time demanded equality of treatment with land workers. As the result of an agreement reached at Paris in March at a meeting of the Joint Maritime Commission, between representatives of shipowners and seamen, it has been possible to deal from a fresh standpoint with the question of hours of work, on board ship, which had remained in suspense for five years. This time, joined to the problem of manning, it was discussed by the preparatory maritime meeting which met at Geneva from November 26 to December 6. At the close of its discussions, this meeting stated in a report which was unanimously adopted, that some of the opinions expressed by members belonging to all three groups—Government, shipowners, and seamen—appear to indicate that "there are to be found certain common elements which indicate that a basis of agreement on the question of hours of work and manning is beginning to emerge." The same meeting, in which sixteen of the chief maritime countries, together representing five-sixths of world shipping tonnage, took part, also reached results in. regard to holidays with pay for seamen which will allow this question to be settled definitely, as I well as the problem of hours of work, 'and manning and all other maritime questions held over since 1929, in a special maritime session that the International Labour Conference will hold during the autumn of 1936. The question of holidays with pay will consequently be settled for.seamen during the same year as for workers in industry and commerce, since for the latter the problem will be the subject of a final discussion in June next, after having successfully passed a first discussion at the 1935 conference. This 1935 conference did very useful | preparatory work in the field of the regulation of certain systems of recruiting of workers. It also definitely adopted conventions on the very technical and very complicated problem of the conservation of the pension rights of workers moving from one country to another. By another convention it laid down the general prohibition of the employment of women in underground work in mines; and it successfully revised the 1931 convention on hours of work in coal mines, in order- to facilitate its ratification. YOUTH EMPLOYMENT. In particular, this conference adopted a very detailed recommendation on the measures to be taken in connection with the unemployment of young persons, which is a particularly serious aspect of the world depression. It was the preparatory studies of the International Labour Office on this problem which revealed the wide extent of this evil, in showing that there were the alarming number of six or seven millions of young persons without employment in the world. - The moving demonstration which, while this problem was being discussed, brought the delegates to the conference in direct contact with the delegates of the young unemployed from manw countries and of all political tendencies, ' showed how vital is the j reality on which is based the work of the International Labour Organisation, and how much the masses look to it to remedy social evils. The problem of the malnutrition of workers also came up at the 1935 session of the International Labour Conference. The Assembly of the League of Nations in its turn discussed the question in the following September. The resolutions adopted on both occasions form the basis of studies carried out in collaboration by the international institutions concerned, both j on the necessity of assuring sufficient and proper nutrition for the workers, and on the possibility of ameliorating the depression by the increased consumption of agricultural products. The zeal of distant countries, and particularly of the countries of America, for international social legislation, also continues to be shown by an increasing -number of ratifications of International Labour Conventions. Of the forty-two ratifications registered during the year, twenty-eight were by extra-European countries, of which twenty were from the Continent of America. At December 31, 1935, the total number of ratifications officially registered was 678, as compared with 636 on January 1, 1935. Last year, for the first time, the JJnited States of America and the Union of Soviet Social Kepublics, as well as Afghanistan and Ecuador, took part in the International Labour Conference as full States Members. The United States and U.S.S.R. have, more-

over, taken their places on the Governing Body of the International Labour Office among the eight States Members of chief industrial importance. The drawing up of this list of those eight St a t cs —to each of which, it will be recalled, the Constitution gives the right to a Government seat—created delicate problems. The governing body settled jthem in a manner which will constantly assure the strict observance of its appropriate functions. As the result of these decisions, after the withdrawal j of Germany, the eight States Members of chief industrial importance are, I in alphabetical order: Canada, France, 1 Great Britain, India, Ivaly, Japan, the j United States of America, and the U.S.S.R. Th total number of countries belonging to the International Labour Organisation is now sixty-one. j | SAFETY OF WORKERS. j j Among . the decisions of the govern- | ing body may be also mentioned those I which call the attention of the International Labour Conference' of 1936 to the problem of the safety of workers in the building industry, and those concerning the extension of international protection to categories of workers not yet covered, the question of workers' leisure in connection with the reduction of hours of work, the continuation of the work of the International Management Institute, ec. Also must be recalled the results obtained in connection with the application on the railways of India of the 1919 Convention on hours of work, and the valuable technical assistance given by thel.L.O. in the regulation of the question of social insurance in the Saar. Finally, the scientific activity of the office was particularly important during 1935'. Besides its regular publications, and reports for the conference and the governing body, it published several documentary studies, particularly on: "Social and Economic Reconstruction in the United States"; "A Public Works Policy"; "The Regulation of Hours of Work of Children and Young Persons"; "The Problems of Vocational Guidance"; "Industrial Relations"; "The Rural Exodus in Czechoslovakia"; the effects of opium on workers; the combined action of population changes, technical progress and economic development on unemployment; social insurance, eta