History of Working Time in the United States

History of Working Time before 1945

In the United States, regulations of hours worked in industry are made by state or Federal legislation or by agreement between employer and trade union. When trade unions fix the length of the working day, they mean the basic workday, with a higher rate of pay for overtime. The theory of the basic workday is that extra pay for overtime acts as a tax on the employer to induce him to introduce a shorter actual workday. In the week ending Dec. 13 1919, for the entire state of New York, 35.76% of telephone operators worked from 3 to 6 hours overtime, 35.02% worked 6 to 9 hours overtime.

According to the census of 1910, of the 6,615,046 wage-earners enumerated in manufacturing enterprises, 7.9% worked 48 hours or less a week, 30.6% worked 54 hours or less, 60.7% worked more than 54 hours but not more than 60 hours, and 8% worked more than 60 hours. The census shows that 114,118 or 1.7% worked where the prevailing hours were more than 72 a week. These figures, which do not include agriculture, building, mining, domestic and personal service, show the number of hours normally worked by the majority of workers in the establishments enumerated. Of the 86 principal manufacturing industries employing more than 10,000 wage-earners in 1909, 20 employed over 10% of their workers more than 60 hours a week.

Among railway employees continuous service for long hours has been very common. Records of the Interstate Commerce Commission show that during the year ending June 30 1913, 261,332 railway men were reported as on duty for periods exceeding the legal limit of 16 hours, and that over 33,000 of them worked more than 21 hours continuously. In 1914, of the 7,000,000 wage-earners enumerated in manufacture in the United States, 11.8% worked 48 hours a week or less, 51% worked 54 hours or less a week, 43.1% worked more than 54 hours but not more than 60 hours, and 5.8 % worked more than 60 hours. The number working more than 72 hours was 0.8%. The number working the 8-hour day or less was 833,330, chiefly in the building trades.

The year 1915 was marked by an active movement toward the 8-hour day. Strikes for the basic 8-hour day started among the machinists in the war-boom town of Bridgeport, Conn., where they put the factories of the city practically on an 8-hour basis, and spread over the entire state and then into other states, especially Pennsylvania, New York, Ohio, Illinois and Massachusetts, and into other trades — munition industries, automobile factories, paper mills, musical instrument factories and garment trades. Over 200 firms, chiefly located in the eastern states, and among them the largest of their kind, granted the 8-hour day to their employees in 1915. Thirty thousand machinists in munition plants in Connecticut alone gained the 8-hour day. On Jan. 1 1915, about 7,000 members of the International Association of Machinists had the 8-hour day: by Jan. 1 1916, 60,000 had it. Of wage-earners in manufactures in the industries and localities studied by the Bureau of Labour Statistics in 1917, 171,978 gained the 8-hour day in 1915; 342,138 in 1916; 537,587 in the first 6 months of 1917. This leads to the conclusion that there were in the United States in June 1917, at least 1,885,033 wage-earners enjoying the 8-hour day. Probably in each case the basic 8-hour day is meant. The Anthracite Mine agreement of May 1916 established the basic 8-hour day with pro rata overtime pay for 6 days a week for all employees in the anthracite mines in place of the 9-hour day established by the 1902 agreement. The new agreement affected approximately 100,000 of the 181,899 workers reported in the anthracite mines in 1914, since the miners proper and their underground labourers, who together constitute about 40% of the total working force, were already working an 8-hour day schedule, and about 8,000 other employees were compelled by the nature of their duties to continue working 9 hours a day. In this case the basic 8 hours do not include the time going to and from employment, even on the premises of the mine; drivers must take their mules from the stables to the working place before the 8 hours begin, pay for such services to be included in the day rates.

What did more than anything else to bring the 8-hour movement to the attention of the general American public was the threatened strike of the railroad brotherhoods in the summer of 1916. As early as 1907 three of the brotherhoods in the western territory had demanded an 8-hour day, but they had abandoned this in favour of an increase in wages. In 1915 at the national conventions of the brotherhoods the question of the 8-hour day came up. Each convention instructed the executive officers to demand a basic 8-hour day, with pay at the rate of time-and-a-half for overtime. In Jan. 1916 the strike ballot was submitted to the vote of the men. In Feb., it was officially announced that 90% had voted in favour. The railroads were notified, and a reply requested. The two sides entered into negotiations, but in June the railroads refused the demands of the employees, and asked for arbitration under the Newlands Act or by the Interstate Commerce Commission. The brotherhoods rejected this, and voted to strike on Sept. 2. The country was frightened; it was at a time of crisis in international relations. The result was the President’s message to Congress and the passage of the “Adamson Law.”

The Adamson Law granted the basic 8-hour day to the members of the four railroad brotherhoods, at a rate of pay for the 8 hours equal to that previously for 10, and pro rata for overtime up to the legal 16 hours. The Act also provided for a commission to investigate the results of the change. The report of this commission was published in 1918. It shows that the greatest reduction in hours was among yard crews, 11,000 of whom were placed on 8-hour shifts between March and Oct. 1917. Passenger trainmen who were already often working 8 hours or less were little affected, while freight crews continued to have runs from 11 to 13 hours. In 1919 a general order of the Railroad Administration gave to the freight service the 8-hour day or 100-m. run as a basis with time-and-a-half pay for overtime.

After the entrance of the United States into the World War in April 1917 the number of employees working an 8-hour schedule was greatly increased because of the automatic regulation of the hours of labour on Government contract work by the Federal 8-hour law. By a series of executive orders the 8-hour day on Government ship-building, munitions, and construction work was suspended during the war emergency, and the basic 8-hour day with time-and-a-half pay for overtime was substituted. The influence of this on public opinion led to the introduction of the basic 8-hour day in private industries. About 25,000 boot and shoe workers secured the so-hour week during 1917, about 11,000 cigar-makers gained the 8-hour day. About 10,000 fur workers reduced their hours from 53 to 49 a week by strikes: in New York City about 5,000 of them secured an agreement establishing the basic 8-hour day. The United States Bureau of Labor Statistics reported in 1917 that the number of workers having the 8-hour day had increased 27% since 1914. Of the union scales in the metal trades in 1914, 28% provided for the 8-hour day, and 49% for the 54-hour week; in 1917, 41% provided for an 8-hour day, 32% for a 54-hour week.

In 1918, 50,000 lumbermen of the western states, 100,000 employees of the meat-packing industry, and about 336,000 shipyard employees and 270,000 employees of the merchant marine worked the basic 8-hour day with extra overtime pay, due largely to rulings of such Governmental boards as the Shipbuilding Labour Adjustment Board and the National War Labor Board, the general policy of which was to grant the basic 8-hour day, with time-and-a-half for overtime and double pay for Sundays and holidays. Shipbuilding employees of the Delaware river and Baltimore district were granted a basic 44-hour week with overtime pay up to a maximum of 60 hours. A decision of the War Labor Board introduced the actual 8-hour day, except in emergencies, in the foundries of Wheeling, W.Va. The reason given was that longer hours shorten the workers’ lives, injure their health, and in the long run decrease production. In this case overtime was to be permitted only by the vote of a joint committee of employers and employees. For the railway shops, on the other hand, an agreement was made between the union and the Railroad Administration for all shops working single shifts of less than 70 hours a week to increase their hours on a 7-day basis, to meet the emergency of the war. On the day following the signing of the Armistice, the heads of the three chief production departments of the Government, War, Navy, and the Shipping Board, decided to issue an order for immediate discontinuance of overtime and Sunday work on all Government construction and in all establishments owned or controlled by the Government which were producing war supplies. An order of the Railroad Administration a week later provided that, wherever practicable, the hours which had been increased to meet emergencies in railway shops should be reduced to nine. Four awards of the War Labor Board in Oct. refused to permit overtime pay for Sunday work unless the employee had worked 48 hours in the preceding week.

The movement for the 8-hour day continued after the Armistice, until there was in 1921 scarcely a trade or industry in which many of the employees were not working the basic 8-hour day. Many of these work overtime. The Bureau of Labor Statistics in 1919 received reports of 1,640 agreements between trade unions and employers providing for the 48-hour week, and 315 providing for the 44-hour week. On Oct. 1 1918 the U.S. Steel Corporation granted the basic 8-hour day with time-and-a-half pay for overtime to the employees in its mines and industrial establishments, more than 250,000 men. A year later, the treasurer testified before the U.S. Senate Committee that of 60,000 employees of this corporation and its subsidiary companies, 26.8% actually worked 72 hours or more a week, 38.7% worked 60 hours or more, and only 34.2% worked less than 60 hours a week. Most of these men work 7 days each week, 82 men work a continuous 24 hours once in each month, and 344 men work a continuous 18 hours every alternate week; these are all in blast furnace departments. However, some 20 American steel plants were in 1921 running on a 3-shift schedule; the employees affected have been willing to make concessions in the matter of wages, in order to obtain the shorter hours.

The year 1919 was marked by the introduction of the 44-hour week in the clothing industry, the result of strikes and peaceful agreements. The Postal Telegraph Co. reduced the hours of its employees to 8 a day. It indeed seemed that the 8-hour day was the “established policy of the country,” as the President’s personal mediation commission had stated. Twenty-seven unions, with a membership of 15,350, chiefly in the railway shops and building trades of Boston and Seattle, had a basic 4O-hour week. In 1919 the International Typographical Union obtained the 44-hour week in book and job offices by negotiation with the employers; 12 years before, this Union together with the bookbinders and the pressmen, had spent $11,000,000 to win the 48-hour week.

Investigations made in 1920 showed that one-half the employees of hotels and about one-third of the men and one-fourth of the women working in restaurants were employed 7 days a week. Except for cooks the hours were very irregular, often split into shifts, and falling at different times day after day. The average hours on duty varied from 8 to 10 every 24. The basic work week in the Central Atlantic coast district for 40% of the unskilled labourers was over 54 hours, for 30% more than 44 but not more than 48 hours, for 18% it was 44 hours or less. Of skilled trades in the same district, 75% worked 44 hours or less a week; of clerical workers 12% worked 39 hours or less, 53% worked 39¼ to 42 hours inclusive, 33% worked 42½ to 45 hours inclusive. There are no data for hours of agricultural labour for the United States as a whole. The length of the workday varies with the kind of farming and with the season. Studies made on Iowa farms (1909 to 1918) show that the average hours per weekday of the proprietor increased from 10.4 to 11.95, while those of the hired labourer decreased from 12.4 to 11.46. In Wisconsin in 1916 the average farm workday was 10.8 hours in winter and 12.5 in summer.

The annual convention of the American Federation of Labor in 1920 accepted the report of the committee on the shorter workday in favour of the 44-hour week, 8 hours for 5 days of the week, 4 hours on Saturday, except in certain industries where the hours should be still shorter, “that there may be no unemployment in that field.”

Six states and the Federal Government have passed laws requiring that certain wage-earners be given one day’s rest in seven. The Federal law applies only to post-office employees. Most of the laws limiting hours for women prevent Sunday work by fixing a weekly as well as a daily limit, but some specify only the daily limit, and Arizona makes the weekly limit 7 times the daily limit. Virginia requires that all state employees who work 7 days must be relieved for at least two Sundays in each calendar month. The 7-day week increases absenteeism, especially on Monday. Much of the present-day continuous operation of industry involves 7-day labour. In Minnesota in 1909, 98,558 men, or approximately 14% of the gainfully employed males in that state, were working every day in the week. In New York in 1910, out of 335,000 union members in a number of specified industries, more than 10% worked 7 days in the week. Many establishments which operate continuously, such as iron and steel plants, paper mills, glass and chemical works, combine the 12-hour day with the 7-day week, and in not a few cases require their employees to alternate weekly or fortnightly between day and night shifts, working 24 hours without rest when the change is made. Telephone operators in New York State receive 150% pay for the first Sunday on duty each month, and 200% pay for additional Sundays: the amount of Sunday work varies with the locality from every other Sunday to one in every fifteen.

While more than a dozen states have made Saturday afternoon a legal holiday, few, if any, have made effective provision for the enforcement of this or other laws fixing legal holidays. The extension of the Saturday half-holiday during recent years has been due to the initiative of the employer or to trade-union activity. The short workday on Saturday is more often found in summer than in winter, and more often among clerical and mercantile than among industrial workers. In 1914 the Consumers’ League induced most of the large stores in New York City to close all day Saturday during July and August. In the summer of 1920, 25 of the largest department stores in the city closed all day on Saturday during July and Aug., and nearly as many for half the day. This was found actually to pay, as the number of shoppers in summer was small on Saturdays. In smaller communities stores closed Wednesday or Thursday. This movement of a regular weekday holiday in summer seems to be growing. In Hudson river towns in the summer of 1920, factories employing less than 50 people were found to shut down on Saturday at 12 or 1 o’clock. In the building trades and clothing industry the 44-hour week is prevalent. Twenty-five per cent of the telephone operators in New York State have the 44-hour week.

Working Time since 1945 in the United States

Note: The below is exctracted from Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia.

By 1946 the United States government had inaugurated the 40-hour work week for all federal employees. Beginning in 1950, under the Truman Administration, the United States became the first known industrialized nation to explicitly (albeit secretly) and permanently forswear a reduction of working time. Given the military-industrial requirements of the Cold War, the authors of the then secret National Security Council Report 68 (NSC-68) proposed the US government undertake a massive permanent national economic expansion that would let it “siphon off” a part of the economic activity produced to support an ongoing military buildup to contain the Soviet Union.

In his 1951 Annual Message to the Congress, President Truman stated:

“In terms of manpower, our present defense targets will require an increase of nearly one million men and women in the armed forces within a few months, and probably not less than four million more in defense production by the end of the year. This means that an additional 8 percent of our labor force, and possibly much more, will be required by direct defense needs by the end of the year. These manpower needs will call both for increasing our labor force by reducing unemployment and drawing in women and older workers, and for lengthening hours of work in essential industries.[1]

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average non-farm private sector employee worked 34.5 hours per week as of June 2012.

As President Truman’s 1951 message had predicted, the share of working women rose from 30 percent of the labor force in 1950 to 47 percent by 2000 – growing at a particularly rapid rate during the 1970s. According to a Bureau of Labor Statistics report issued May 2002, “In 1950, the overall participation rate of women was 34 percent . . . The rate rose to 38 percent in 1960, 43 percent in 1970, 52 percent in 1980, and 58 percent in 1990 and reached 60 percent by 2000. The overall labor force participation rate of women is projected to attain its highest level in 2010, at 62 percent.”[2] The inclusion of women in the work force can be seen as symbolic of social progress as well as of increasing American productivity and hours worked.

Between 1950 and 2007 official price inflation was measured to 861 percent. President Truman, in his 1951 message to Congress, predicted correctly that his military buildup “will cause intense and mounting inflationary pressures.” Using the data provided by the United State Bureau of Labor Statistics, Erik Rauch has estimated productivity to have increased by nearly 400%.[3] According to Rauch, “if productivity means anything at all, a worker should be able to earn the same standard of living as a 1950 worker in only 11 hours per week.”

In the United States, the working time for upper-income professionals has increased compared to 1965, while total annual working time for low-skill, low-income workers has decreased.[4] This effect is sometimes called the “leisure gap”.

In 2006, the average man employed full-time worked 8.4 hours per work day, and the average woman employed full-time worked 7.7 hours per work day. There is no mandatory minimum amount of paid time off for sickness or holiday. However, regular, full-time workers often have the opportunity to take about nine days off for various holidays, two weeks of sick leave and two weeks of paid holiday time, with some workers receiving additional time after several years.

Notes

1. “Harry S. Truman: Annual Message to the Congress: The President’s Economic Report”. Presidency.ucsb.edu.
2. A century of change: the U.S. labor force, 1950–2050. Monthly Labor Review. May 2002.
3. “Productivity and the Workweek”. mit.edu.
4. “An economic mystery: Why do the poor seem to have more free time than the rich? – By Steven E. Landsburg – Slate Magazine”.

History of Working Time in other Countries

See History of Working Time in the World. In the United Kingdom, see History of Hours of Labour in the United Kingdom

See Also

• US State Laws on Work Hours and Overtime Resources
• US State Child Labor Laws Resources
• US Workforce Development Supports for Working Families Resources
• U.S. Labor law and movement history
• U.S. Labor law and movement history 2

Further Reading

Some of the best known studies in the United States are reported in Goldmark’s Fatigue and Efficiency, which is the collection of material used in preparing the brief for the shorter workday for women, in the famous case of Bunting v. Oregon, 37 Sup. Ct. 435, 1917, and in U.S. Public Health Service Bulletin, No. 106. Other references on hours of labour are the series of bulletins on the subject published by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, reports appearing in the Monthly Labor Reviews of the Bureau and reports of the National Industrial Conference Board.