Shorter Hours-In Theory and Practice

Buttressed by a resolution of the AFL-CIO, at its recent annual convention in December 1961, an increasing number of unions are likely in the near future to press hard for a reduction in hours. Indeed, this issue has already appeared in negotiations--for example, in the New York City local transit and building trades industries--and is likely to be among the major demands of the union in the forthcoming bargaining in basic steel. In principle at least, bargaining over this issue is complicated by the absence of a common standard for measuring the effects of changes in the length of the workweek. As the discussion in this article brings out, there are at least three conceptually different measures of the optimal workweek, depending on whether the frame of reference is the employer, the individual worker, or the economy as a whole. The author also discusses a rule by which a choice might be made among the different hours optima. (Author's abstract courtesy EBSCO.)

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