GENERAL SUMMARY

63

work schedule. Eighty-six per cent of the 219 companies
that furnished information as to the policy followed in this
matter had reduced their total working hours per week
in changing to the five-day week, some only slightly, others
substantially. Where the change had come as the result of
an agreement with organized labor, the work week under the
five-day plan was usually set at forty hours.
In some cases, the adjustment of the work week to five
days had been rendered difficult by legislation limiting the
hours per day during which women could be émployed.
With the hours of work per week reduced in changing to
the five-day week, the question of possible wage adjustment
immediately arises. If the five-day schedule is imposed by
organized labor, as was the case in certain apparel industries,
the five-day, 40-hour week without change in wage scales is
usually specified. Since wage scales in these trades are customarily
 on a weekly basis, this arrangement results in fewer
hours of work per week without reduction in wages. Where
decisions on these matters have been made without pressure
from labor unions, some companies have altered wage scales
to permit the earning of as high, or nearly as high, wages
under the shorter schedules as under the longer, while others
have left the wage scales unchanged. In some cases hourly
rates were adjusted and piece rates remained at former levels,
on the theory that piece work permits employees to maintain
their former weekly earnings if they apply themselves sufficiently
 to their work.
In some unionized plants covered in this study, overtime
work was forbidden and therefore all Saturday work was
under the ban. Other plants had not found Saturday work
necessary at any time. About a third of the plants which
furnished information on this subject, however, had found it
advisable, at one time or another, to operate on Saturdays.
In approximately two-thirds of these establishments Saturday
 work was placed in the same category as other overtime
work and was compensated at higher than normal rates, but
in 309% of the establishments the regular rates remained in
force for Saturday work. A considerable majority of companies
 that paid higher than normal rates for Saturday work
paid on the basis of time and one-half, but a few instances
were noted in which double time was paid.