Longer Hours Worked in Industry

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from Julian Atkinson

The March issue of Process Control & Automation had an article by Valter Woodford, executive committee mombor of the U.K. Automation Council, which discussed tho number of hours worked in industry. He said, “About 4 million people unomployoed in Great Britain at this timo. In tho 1930's, unomployment approached 3 million, so that tho past 30 years has seon a reduction in the number of unemployed of more than 2 million, quite apart from tho additional jobs that have boen created during this period. Unemployment is wholly unnecessary today and could bo eliminated almost with tho stroke of a pen, if we choso to do so. For political and other reasons, we do not choose to do sos but we must not blame automation because society is unwilling to orgonise itself proporly.

‘Figures just published by the Ministry of Labour reveal that the male worker's average hours in Octobor, 1963, were 47.6 a week, which was 0.7 more than in tho previous April and 0.6 more than in October, 1962, Thus the number of hours actually worked per man per weok in the 12 months, October, 1962, to Octobor, 1963, was seon to riso in spite of the fact that, during this period, unemployment in Britain roached the highest figure for many yoars. Unemployment, at the presant moment, is about 2% of the working force. About 2h of 47.6 hours por woek is ono hour: if the working week were reduced by one hour, therefore, unemployment would vanish at once. In fact, because some people are unemployable and because there aro always some people moving from job to job and, therefore, tomporarily registored as unemployed, a reduction of one hour in the actual working weck would creat a labour shortagee

"The number of hours worked in a wock is not a matter of automation it is a matter of politics, Tho 40-hour weok is a myths it is simply a basis for negotiating pay. If the working week were actually limited to a maximum of 40 hours for any one porson, our economy would be wrecked: we should not-be able to automate fast enough to mako up for the labour shortages"