Abstract
THE uncompromising attitude of certain sections of British industry to proposals for the reduction of working hours might be regarded with some amuse ment but for the serious results which it is likely to precipitate. The portentous arguments set forth, for example, by the National Federation of Employers Organisations against the forty-four hour week recapitulate in unmistakably the same accents those advanced with equal plausibility in previous genera tions against Factory Acts, the abolition of child labour and the limitation by law of the hours of work by women and children. There are, however, important firms such as Imperial Chemical In dustries, Ltd., in its Billingham Works, and Boots Pure Drug Co., at Nottingham, which have had the courage and wisdom to determine the possi bilities of the forty-hour or five-day week by direct experiment. The experiment carried out at Notting ham is of the greater interest in that its results have been made generally available in an im portant report by Sir Richard Redmayne, who was nominated by the Ministry of Labour, at the firm's request, to conduct an exhaustive inquiry as to whether the permanent adoption of the five-day week in all its works is possible (“A Review of the Experimental Working of the Five Days Week by Boots Pure Drug Company at Nottingham.” By Sir Richard A. S. Redmayne. Pp. 70. Nottingham: Boots Pure Drug Co., 1934. Is.). The publication of the full details of this investigation in itself con stitutes a noteworthy break with the tradition of secrecy which has hampered the pooling of experience in matters of industrial safety, hygiene, labour policy, etc.
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Reduction of Working Hours in Industry. Nature 134, 927 (1934). https://doi.org/10.1038/134927a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/134927a0