Business: 30 Hours

No news is it for Labor to favor shorter working hours, nor for politicians to favor shorter working hours for their constituents. Not so great news is it as formerly for manufacturers to favor shorter working hours. Nonetheless it was a shock to many a businessman to learn last week that Gerard Swope, president of General Electric, appearing before a committee of Congress favored if not a 30-hour week at least the next thing to it. A bill before Congress (TIME, Jan. 23) would prohibit the shipment in interstate commerce of goods manufactured in any plant where workers labored more than five six-hour days a week. Furthermore it would give the Government power to fix minimum wage rates so that manufacturers could not simply cut weekly pay along with hours.

Mr. Swope in a blue serge suit shining with wear, sat down with the members of the House Labor Committee, told them he thought the 30-hour week bill was too inflexible but proposed: 1) To limit all employes (except farmers and domestics) receiving less than $1,800 a year to 832 hours work in every period of six months (about 32 hoursa week), not more than 48 hours in any week, nor more than eight hoursin any day. 2) By declaring a national emergency to make the rule applynot only to factories shipping in interstate commerce but to all industrial plants everywhere. 3) To give the Department of Labor power to fix minimum wages for men. women and children by localities (and the right to delegate this authority to local industrial commissions). 4) To limit the duration of the law to two years. While Mr. Swope, evidently promoting the liberal policies for which his Board Chairman Owen D. Young is famed, was practically assenting to the 30-hour week, other manufacturers were vigorously opposing it. Henry Ingraham Harriman appearing for the U. S. Chamber of Commerce, James Augustan Emery for the National Association of Manufacturers, protested that the bill would work vicious harm, upset industry, prevent recovery. The automobile business sent a sheaf of opposing telegrams, wires from Chevrolet, Chrysler, Hudson, Hupp. Not wholly isolated was Mr. Swope, however. Many opponents qualified their opposition, indicating that if the strict six-hour, five-day-and-no-more provision were made more flexible, they might feel differently. Henry Ford was reported in favor of the bill. Two other notable industrialists who favor the general idea include Lamont duPont, president of E. I. duPont de Nemours, which instituted a six-hour day in October, 1931, and Herbert Lee Pratt, chairman of Socony-Vacuum, which instituted a five-day week last fall. Many a great corporation is already providing its workers with no more than 30 hours work a week, many an executive is committed to the economic theory that there must be more workers on the na-tional payroll and a bigger payroll in order to provide more public purchasing power. Chief opposition therefore centres among those who believe a strict 30-hour week without variations would be inconvenient in their business, who oppose minimum-wage fixing by the Government. Thus has U. S. business come to adopt views which would have shocked its fathers, which are still shocking other parts of the world: police in Barcelona were still busy last week trying to suppress a “subversive movement,” fostered by anarchists and syndicalists, to establish a six-hour day in that city.