SHIFT SYSTEM APPRAISED

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXIX, 31 January 1936, Page 9

SHIFT SYSTEM APPRAISED

CHANGES IN SOCIAL CUSTOM Some sidelightss on recent changes in social custom are illustrated in the bill which is now being brought before Parliament legalising the double-shift system for women factory workers, notes the “Listener.” The bill embodies the conclusions unanimously reached by a departmental committee which reported to the Home Secretary earlier in the year. The system used to be criticised oil the ground that it interfered with family life and that the night shift, which ends at 10 o’clock, involved unusually late hours, hut the committee came to the conclusion that, as things are to-dav, there is little substance in these criticisms. The Victorian family circle, which involved the same hours of work and plav for everybody, has given place to a wider dispersal of interests, and young people do not commonly spend" the same amount of time at home as an earlier generation did. If, as a result of the new bill, the use of the shift system becomes much more general and in many industries it has marked advantages, as for a manufacturer experimenting with a new line while maintaining his established lines—there will be a growth of new facilities in the mornings and early afternoons for amusement and recreation. J-lie rush-hour crowds, the numbers of. people travelling within the same periods oi the day, are growing evils in our large towns, and seriously dimmish the enjoyment which has to be obtained amid general congestion. The shift .system, if it stows, promises some alleviation ana spacing out which will relieve > the present accumulation after six o clock oi people who, having crowded with each other to work, find themselves treading on each other’s heels in the search tor recreation. _____