EFFECT ON SHIRT OUTPUT OF HAND FINISHING AND SIZE OF UNIT

Output appeared to be lower in plants doing hand finishing of shirts. Most often the type of equipment required hand finishing, but sometimes the owner preferred to offer this service. Several employers, in attributing low or high production to the use or absence of hand finishing, corroborated this finding. An Indianapolis laundry, for example, had two types of shirt units-one turning out a completely machine-finished shirt and the other doing some hand finishing. The former unit had average production of 25 per operator-hour; the latter, doing hand finishing, averaged only 12.

Seemingly, output was also affected by the size of the shirt unit. For a group of laundries where information was available, it was found that output per operator-hour was as high as 20 or more only when 4 or fewer operatives worked in a unit. A few employers expressed a preference for smaller units, explaining that it is easier to develop good teamwork on a small unit. On the other hand, a few owners said they had deliberately added additional workers to the unit and that though production per operator was lowered, they thereby assured themselves a reserve of workers.

PRODUCTIVITY AND METHOD OF WAGE PAYMENT

Although it was generally true that laundries whose shirt operatives were paid on the basis of an incentive wage achieved higher productivity than laundries paying their operatives on a time method, the existence of an incentive system, per se, did not inevitably assure high output per operator-hour, nor did it provide a cure-all for eliminating extremely low output.

Shirt production per operator-hour was less than 20 in almost two-thirds of the establishments. Only 14 percent attained a production figure of 25 or more. When, from among the total group of laundries, those which paid all members of their shirt crews on a time-method were compared with those which paid all shirt operatives on an incentive basis, sharp contrasts were found between the time and the incentive shirtlines. Over four-fifths of the time plants, compared to less than half the incentive plants, had production falling below 20 shirts per operator-hour. Only 2 percent of the time crews achieved production of 25 or more, compared to 26 percent of the incentive crews reaching this output.

Other significant facts stand out, however, from this analysis. Despite the use of an incentive wage method, almost half the incentive plants could not reach production as high as 20 per operator-hour, and in over a third of these production hit low points of less than 15 an hour. In several localities, including Chicago, St. Louis, and Atlanta, some laundries paying shirt crews on the time method exceeded the operator-hour output of incentive plants. It is evident, therefore, that an incentive system, in itself, did not automatically guarantee high productivity.

Equally significant is the fact that southeastern laundries, even when they used incentive methods of pay, did not equal the production performance of laundries in midwestern cities. Among the southeastern laundries whose shirt operatives were paid exclusively under an incentive system, almost three-fifths had production of under 20, and almost a third of these, under 15. Midwestern laundries using incentive pay did almost twice as well. Here, in almost three-fourths of the incentive plants, production averaged 20 or more, and in the majority of these plants production was substantially higher-25 or more shirts per operator-hour. Obviously, factors other than method of wage payment have influenced productivity in many southeastern laundries.

Table 13 presents the picture.

Table 13.-Comparison of Shirt Production per Operator-Hour and Method of Wage Payment, by Region

PRODUCTIVITY AND EARNINGS

Contrary to what might have been expected, differences in productivity did not account for differences in earnings. Shirt operatives have no assurance that their pay will be commensurate with their output. Operatives with identical output, working in different cities, and often in different laundries of the same city, received vastly different wages. For example, in southeastern laundries which reported shirt output of about 20 per operator-hour, average hourly earnings of the shirt operatives varied from a low of 30 cents in one of these plants to a high of 59 cents in another. In midwestern laundries with the same output-20 per operator-hour-shirt operatives in one plant averaged 40 cents an hour, in another 85 cents. That output bears little relationship to earnings is also illustrated by the 10 southeastern laundries whose shirt operatives averaged about 11 shirts an hour and who received, on the average, 32 cents an hour. In another group of

southeastern laundries where the operatives produced more-15 shirts an hour-they earned less, only 28 cents, on the average.

Even within the same city, earnings differed widely in laundries with identical output per operator-hour. In Norfolk, two laundries, both of whose shirt operatives were paid on an incentive basis, reported the same output, 19 shirts per operator-hour, but the shirt operatives averaged only 47 cents an hour in one laundry, compared to 72 cents in the other a difference of 53 percent. Four Chicago laundries, paying all their shirt operatives under an incentive method, were able to turn out 25 shirts per operator-hour, but earnings varied from 61 cents to 90 cents.

Operatives in one laundry sometimes earned less for a higher output than operatives in another laundry in the same city. In a Tampa laundry, for example, operatives averaged 52 cents an hour and produced an average of 16 shirts per operator-hour. In another Tampa laundry, operatives produced 22 shirts an hour, but averaged only 39 cents an hour. This type of inequity was found in many cities.

As was noted previously, laundries in many of the midwestern cities achieved substantially better production records than did those in southeastern cities. But the differences in earnings of shirt operatives, when compared to their output, was even more striking. Shirt operatives in many southeastern laundries, for output only somewhat lower than in the Midwest, nevertheless earned materially less-an earnings difference substantially greater than could be considered warranted by the difference in output. As table 14 shows, in southeastern laundries which paid all their shirt operatives on an incentive basis, production, on the average, was 14 percent less than in midwestern laundries using incentive pay, but earnings in the Southeast were 36 percent lower than in the Midwest, a difference over two and a half times the difference in output.

Table 14.-Comparison of Average Shirt Production per Operator-Hour and Average Hourly Earnings of Shirtline Operatives, by Region

CHAPTER VI. HOURS

Low wages and long hours often go hand in hand. Management inefficiencies resulting in low output tend to make the employer think that only by operating under an unduly long workweek can the required work be produced. The effects of unreasonably long hours on productivity per man-hour, on absenteeism, and on turn-over are well recognized in present day principles of industrial efficiency.

During the war period, laundry employers may have either extended the workweek or failed to reduce one already long in order to maximize the use of available labor and existing machinery. On the other hand many employers, in an effort to make laundry employment more attractive, reduced hours of work. Such war conditions probably influenced the hours schedules in effect in 1945.

Industry in normal years has been tending toward a 40-hour week, a development stimulated by the provisions of the Federal Fair Labor Standards Act which require the payment of time and one-half the employee's regular rate of pay for hours beyond 40 per week. Despite the fact that women, often compelled by economic necessity to hold a full-time job and to perform a variety of homemaking tasks in their "leisure" hours, have a particular need for reasonable working hours, many are denied the benefits of the Fair Labor Standards Act because they are concentrated in intrastate trade and service industries. Especially in an industry which leans heavily on women's labor, the hours of work bear directly on the problem of recruiting and retaining a competent workforce. Among retail department stores there is a noticeable trend toward the 5-day, 40-hour week for employees, though the store itself may remain open to customers for longer hours. Relatively few laundries have matched this standard.

Laundries have long been faced with the difficulty, stemming from the traditional Monday washday, of regularizing the workweek. Wartime regulations on delivery service have helped to overcome this problem by regularizing the work load and consequently the workweek. Employers hope to retain this advantage. When, instead of pick-ups on Monday and deliveries on Thursday and Friday, regulated pick-ups and deliveries are made on each day of the week, the volume and flow of work in the plant can be kept at an even keel, making it possible to establish a definite schedule of daily and weekly hours for employees. Several employers reported that hours of work varied, depending on the work load. In these plants the scheduled workweek generally called for a full day on Saturday, but employees were allowed to leave when the week's work was completed. Sometimes this meant about half a day's work on Saturday and sometimes none at all.

SCHEDULED WEEKLY HOURS

The scheduled hours for women production employees sometimes corresponded with the hours usually worked, but, as described above,

they sometimes represented the maximum hours employees might be called upon to work if the work load required it, exclusive of overtime which might or might not be paid for.

A 40-hour week was virtually unknown except in some Chicago laundries. The workweek in most laundries, about two-thirds of them, called for 45 to 50 hours. Relatively few had less than 45 hours, but one-fifth of the total 258 plants scheduled their women employees to work more than 50 hours a week, sometimes as long as 54, 55, 56, and even 57 hours. Hours were generally longer in the Southeast than in the Middle West, but large proportions of the establishments in both regions had unreasonably long workweeks; more than 48 hours a week were scheduled in 36 percent of the midwestern laundries and 47 percent of those in the southeast.

That laundries can adhere to reasonable schedules is proved by the practices of groups of employers in many cities. Table 15 shows the workweek scheduled for women production workers in the laundries surveyed. Relatively few laundries reported that employees in some departments worked on a schedule different from that of the other workers.

Table 15.-Weekly Hours of Work Scheduled by Plants for Women Production Workers, by Locality