Another circular of instructions in November, 1915, recommended that under the two shift system, women should be employed “as far as is reasonably practicable” by day rather than by night.
Later Developments
Scientific studies in fatigue, and improvements in the regulation of working hours, continued to be the chief features of the women’s hour situation during the latter part of the war. Two reports made for the Home Office by Dr. A. F. Stanley Kent on An Investigation of Industrial Fatigue by Physiological Methods, showed, as the result of actual experiments with working days of different length, that overtime may “defeat its own object” and actually cause a diminution in “total daily output.” The first report which had been published in August, 1915, was of less direct practical importance, giving merely a description of a number of tests adapted to showing fatigue in factory workers. The second report, issued in September, 1916, was a study of output and the effects of fatigue in certain plants making war equipment under working days of different length. Among its most significant conclusions from the point of view of hour restriction were the following:
A worker employed for 10 hours per day may produce a greater output than when employed for 12 hours, the extra rest being more than sufficient to compensate for the loss of time.
A worker employed for 8 hours per day may produce a greater output than another of equal capacity working 12 hours per day.
A group of workers showed an absolute increase of over 5 per cent of output as a result of diminution of 16½ per cent in the length of the working day.
Another group increased their average rate of output from 262 to 276 as a result of shortening the day from 12 hours to 10 and to 316 on a further shortening of 2 hours.
Under the conditions studied neither rate of working nor total output attains a maximum when a 12 hour day is adopted.[172]
Two other scientific reports on the subject dealt with The Question of Fatigue from the Economic Standpoint, and were put out by a committee of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in September, 1915, and September, 1916, respectively. The monographs emphasized the importance of an observation of fatigue in the workers and adaptation of the hours of labor thereto. The memoranda and reports of the Health of Munition Workers Committee are the best known of this group of studies, no doubt because besides being the work of scientific investigators, they were carried on to form a basis for official action, and contained definite recommendations for the shortening of hours in order to improve output. While they dealt with munitions work alone, the principles brought out are equally applicable to any form of industrial occupation.
The first memorandum published in November, 1915, covered the subject of Sunday labor, and recommended without qualifications a weekly rest day for all classes of workers.