SIX HOURS SHALT THOU LABOR

William Green emerges from obscurity to take up the gage for the six-hour day. Mr. Ford toyed with the idea as long as it seemed to promise profit for him, Edison considered its final adoption inevitable, but it has remained for Mr. Green to take any real steps to spread the system. Yet few know that the plan has now been in successful operation in a modern factory for more than a year. This development is the more significant because it promises to alleviate the American unemployment situation.

The surprising aspect of the six-hour day is that from it concrete advantages accrue to both employer and employee. W. K. Kellogg has used the plan in his plant at Battle Creek since December, 1930, and he has made some startling discoveries concerning its use in mechanical factories. Machinery designed to turn out 165 pieces per minute is working at a 208 per minute rate. Wages are not reduced, but overhead is appreciably cut. Yet dividends pour forth as before. The secret is that the shorter shift is easier to handle, needs no lunch-hours and no replacements during lunch, and is more efficient. Shorter hours lessen the monotony and the production curve moves up, so that even the low spots are higher than before.

Under the six-hour day approximately one third more labor is employed than under the eight-hour day. The plan is applicable to most salaried occupations, from ditch-digging to school-teaching, and its adoption would mean a tremendous expansion of employment. Since there are now 8,300,000 unemployed, and since an estimated 1,000,000 jobs were destroyed by technical improvement for the decade 1919-1929, some immediate and drastic action is imperative. Inasmuch as the first trials of the six-hour day have proved its worth, Mr. Green's plan is the logical and needed solution of the employment problem.