workers on board might be employed. Exceptions were ad-
mitted for small vessels, fishing vessels, and sailing vessels doing
coasting voyages in the limits of Norwegian waters.
SWITZERLAND. The principal Act regulating the hours of labour in Switzerland is the Factories Act of June 18 1914, which was amended by an Act of June 17 1919. The latter Act reduced the weekly hours to 48, providing at the same time for a working day longer than 8 hours in cases where a short Saturday is worked. Extensions to 52 hours are permissible if the Federal Council con- siders them warranted by " urgent necessity."
Hours of work on railways and other services connected with transport and communications (i.e. the Federal railways, postal, telegraph and telephone services, and transport and communica- tion undertakings licensed by the State) are fixed by an Act of March 6 1920 at 8 per day averaged over 14 working days. This Act was the object of a referendum and was approved by a large majority.
In the Canton of Basle (Town) a local Act of April 8 1920 applies the 48-hour week in a general way to all employees in the public services and in private undertakings. For bakers and confectioners, gardeners, hairdressers, shop assistants and some others a weekly maximum of 51 hours is determined; for caretakers, messengers, cab-drivers, hotel employees and home workers it is 60 hours, and for chemists' assistants, theatre employees and " persons who work in the houses of private customers " 54. Domestic servants and agricultural workers are to be guaranteed an uninterrupted rest period of 9 hours in every 24. Other provisions regulate the working hours of young persons and children.
The 48-hour week has been very widely adopted in Switzerland, by virtue of the Act of 1919 and of numerous collective agreements which have regulated its application. Certain industries, e.g. lace- making and home-weaving, still, however, work longer hours, in the first case 52 (in 1914 it was 60), and in the latter, it is alleged, 10 to 12 hours per day.
For the building trades a scheme drawn up by a Special Com- mission appointed by the Federal Department of Public Economy was accepted in 1921. Under it the weekly hours will be 50 during the period March to Sept., 44! in Oct. and Nov., and 39 otherwise.
GREECE. A regulation issued on Feb. 14 1911 established the 8-hour day for underground workers in mines. By collective agree- ments the same rule holds in certain industries, especially in and near Athens and the Piraeus, and in State industries. Workers cov- ered by these agreements include gasworkers, dockers, workers in the manufacture of macaroni, flour-millers, coopers, carpenters and ship cleaners. Greece was the first country to ratify the Washington international Draft Convention.
JAPAN. Some limitation of working hours (the 12-hour day) was secured by the Japanese Factory Act of 1911, but the 8-hour day has only recently begun to be adopted. Since the war, however, this daily limit has been introduced in the shipbuilding industry and in the metal trades; it would appear, however, that the American plan of determining a " basic " 8-hour day has been adopted, rather than an actual limitation of hours. In some of the important glass works of Osaka, and in certain establishments in Tokyo, Kobe and Osaka, the 8-hour day is worked. Telephone workers in the central offices work a 7- or 8-hour day.
SOUTH AMERICA. Either by national law or by agreement the 8-hour day for industry prevails generally in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Peru, Ecuador and Uruguay. (H. A. G.*)
UNITED STATES. 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 en- tire 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 nor- mally worked by the majority of workers in the establishments enumerated. Of the 86 principal manufacturing industries em- ploying 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, n-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 work- ing 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 Pennsyl- vania, New York, Ohio, Illinois and Massachusetts, and into other trades munition industries, automobile factories, paper mills, musi- cal 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. I 1915, about 7,000 members of the Inter- national Association of Machinists had the 8-hour day : by Jan. I
1916, 60,000 had it. Of wage-earners in manufactures in the indus- tries 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 con- vention 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 1 6 hours. The Act also provided for a commission to investi- gate 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, 1 1 ,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 II to 13 hours. In 1919 a general order of the Railroad Administration gave to the freight service the 8-hour day or loo-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
