32

THE FIVE-DAY WEEK

statute. In New York State, for example, the present law
governing the employment of women in manufacturing industries,
 which became effective January 1, 1928, prescribes
as a maximum an eight-hour day and a 48-hour week, except
that when a half-day only is worked on Saturday a maximum
of nine hours is allowed on five days, and four and one-half
hours on Saturday, making a total of forty-nine and one-half
hours for the week. An additional allowance of seventy-eight
hours overtime per year is made. It is apparent, therefore,
that industries employing considerable numbers of women
would be unable, in New York State, to arrange daily working
 schedules in excess of nine hours without recourse to the
overtime allowance, and it may be necessary to conserve this
overtime for emergency needs. Table 7 shows that on this
basis the five-day schedules of forty-four of the 194 companies
listed would be illegal in New York State for companies
employing women.
That this difficulty is not imaginary but very real is shown
by the fact that nine instances of abandonment of the five
day week in New York State were noted during this investigation
 as having been caused by the law described. These
companies found the forty-five hours per week allowed by
the law for five days’ labor inadequate for their production
needs, and reluctantly reverted to the five-and-one-half day
schedule. In all except one of these cases, the total weekly
schedule of hours was below the maximum of forty-nine and
one-half hours permitted by the law, but it could not be compressed
 into five days without exceeding the maximum daily
allowance.
Some companies have combined a reduction in the number
of hours per week, as necessitated by law, with a distribution
of the overtime allowance over the year, and have worked out
a schedule which, if not entirely satisfactory, suffices to petmit
 the continuance of the five-day week.” One such company,
 upon learning the effect that the present law restricting
the working hours of women would have upon its five-day
schedule, took the matter up with the state legislature. A
letter from the president of the company to a member of the
legislature contains this history of the company’s experience
with the five-day week: