Another interesting point in the Health of Munition Workers Committee memoranda was the recognition of the value of brief rest periods within working hours. “Pauses, well distributed and adapted in length to the needs of women workers, are,” it was said, “of the greatest value in averting breakdown and giving an impetus to production.” Particularly with night work “adequate pauses for rest and meals are indispensable.” On twelve hour shifts, two breaks of three quarters of an hour each for meals should be taken out, while on an eight hour shift a half hour for one meal was sufficient. Though the statutes allowed five hours of continuous work in nontextile and four and a half in textile factories, many managers believed that four hours is the longest period during which a woman can maintain continuous work at full vigor. Within this period a pause of ten minutes has been found to give excellent results.
The reports, showing as they did that “the hours which conduced most to a satisfactory home life and to health conduce most to output,” have had a notable influence both in this country and in England in strengthening the scientific basis for labor legislation. For instance, on October 3, 1916, a significant clause was added to the order permitting overtime work, allowing it when necessary on account of the war, only if “such exemption can be granted without detriment to the national interest.”[175]
The Interdepartmental Hours of Labour Committee used the recommendations briefly outlined above as the basis for its work, formulating a new general order regulating overtime, which was finally issued by the Home Office September 9, 1916, after prolonged criticism by all the supply departments. The order applied to all controlled establishments and national workshops and might be extended to any other munitions work. In other cases there was to be a return to factory act hours.
Hours not allowed by the factory act or the order in question are not to be worked after the 1st October, 1916, unless expressly sanctioned by special order from the Home Office. Applications for such special orders will not in future be entertained save in exceptional circumstances and in respect of work of a specially urgent character.[176]
Three schemes of working hours were provided for, a three shift system, two shifts, and a rearrangement of statutory hours. Under the first plan no shift might be longer than ten hours and a weekly rest day was compulsory. Weekly hours under the two shift system were not to exceed sixty, and a maximum of six shifts was to be worked in any one week. The third scheme also limited weekly hours to sixty, and required working hours to fall between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m., but as much as twelve hours might be worked in a single day. Hours for meals were fixed according to the Health of Munition Workers Committee recommendations. In cases of special emergency in naval ship repairing women might work a maximum of sixty-five hours weekly. They might only be employed at night if supervised by a woman welfare worker or “responsible forewoman.” Except for the night work, the order was practically a return to prewar standards.[177]
Meanwhile the Ministry of Munitions gained more direct control over the regulation of hours in January, 1916, through the Munitions Amendment Act, by which it was empowered to fix women’s hours on munitions work in all establishments where “leaving certificates” were required. It supplemented the efforts of the Health of Munition Workers Committee by ordering the “investigating officers,” of the labor regulation section of its labor department, who had charge of all labor matters except dilution and the supply of labor, to report cases of excessive overtime and unnecessary Sunday work in controlled establishments, with a view to having an order issued prohibiting it. An official circular of March 17, 1916, urged that more use be made of “week end volunteers,” so that all workers might have a Sunday rest, “both in the interest of the work people and of production.” But the numbers of “week end munition relief workers” remained small, due to the attitude both of the firms and of the workers, who could not afford to lose their Sunday pay.[178]
Some complaints of unreasonably long hours still persisted. The Woman Worker reported during the winter of 1916 the case of a Scottish factory making cores for grenade bombs which opened at 6 a.m. and closed at 8 p.m. the first five days of the week and at 6 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays making a working week of eighty-two hours exclusive of meal times.[179] Investigators likewise stated that the labor shortage and the urgency of the demand have “frequently” caused the recommendations to be exceeded.[180]
On the other hand, both in the Clyde district and around Birmingham the British Association for the Advancement of Science stated, in April, 1916, that the working week varied from forty-four to fifty-six hours, fifty-four hours being the most common period. In August, 1916, the then Minister of Munitions, Dr. Christopher Addison, said in Parliament in response to questions that the interdepartmental committee was taking steps to bring the working week within the sixty-hour limit in all controlled establishments. And an investigation by the factory inspectors in 1916 found that out of 243 “controlled establishments” 123 were working within the regular sixty-hour limit and only fifteen were working “irregular and excessive” hours, though in nineteen the breaks for rest periods and meals in some way violated the conditions of the order.
In 1916 at least eight hour shifts had failed to “make much progress” and twelve hour shifts were still “predominant.”[181] The latter, it should be noted, meant not twelve but ten and a half hours of actual work over a twelve hour period. Certain large munition establishments, including at least one government factory, even changed from the eight to the twelve hour shift in 1916.[182] Besides the shortage of labor it was said that the workers disliked the necessary changes in meal times and living arrangements under the shorter system, and that transportation schedules were not conveniently adjusted to it. It was alleged that young girls preferred the longer hours because they then escaped helping with the housework!
Outside the munitions industry the factory inspectors reported “numerous applications” for overtime orders in 1916, involving, however, a rearrangement of daily hours rather than a weekly total beyond the statutory limit.