4

THE FIVE-DAY WEEK

and labor union have adopted this policy voluntarily or under
compulsion. As such, each case is significant. But it is
difficult to find any comparability between a small clothing
shop in New York City employing seven workers and the
Ford Motor Company employing nearly 200,000. Each
represents one instance of the adoption of the five-day week
by a manufacturing establishment, but there the likeness
stops. In contrast, the number of workers affected by the
adoption of the five-day schedule indicates in a general way
the proportion of the nation’s, or of an individual industry’s,
man-power that is committed to this schedule of work. It
appears to offer a more significant indication of the spread
of the five-day principle and of the extent to which it has
become effective as a working schedule.
On the basis of the number of establishments on a five.
day week schedule, labor policy appears to be an important
factor and organized labor seems to have exerted consider.
able influence in bringing about the adoption of this schedule.
 But on the basis of the relative size and importance of
closed-union and open-shop plants operating under the
shorter schedule, as measured by the number of workers
affected, the labor union influence loses its significance and
becomes a relatively unimportant factor in accounting for
the spread of five-day week operation.

Location or Five-Day Week PLanTs
The Conference Board’s study clearly reveals that the
five-day week in industrial establishments is preponderantly
an eastern institution, in so far as the number of plants
that have adopted it is concerned. A little less than 5% of
the establishments that reported operation on the schedule
are located in the central states, another 3% are scattered
through southern states, while 109, are in New England
states. The remaining 829, are in the Middle Atlantic
States, with 70%, in New York State alone. This concentra.
tion in the northeastern states, and particularly in New
York, is undoubtedly due in part to the fact that this section
is predominantly the manufacturing section of the country;
and in part to the prevalence in this section of the garment
and printing industries.