Scientific Management and the 44-Hour Week

Abstract

In the four years 1918-1922 standard working times within virtually all the major industrialised nations fell by approximately 20% either as a result of collective bargaining or as a consequence of state intervention in the labour market.1 This global phenomenon was a consequence of two primary factors. First, the radicalisation of the working class that had been engendered by the First World War. Second, a widespread awareness that the war had radically advanced research into the relationship between work and time and that those undertaking this research had come to the conclusion that labouring more than forty-eight hours per week, on a constant basis, was counterproductive. Because of the onset of fatigue, it had been concluded, any longer schedule would generally tend to reduce total output. The evidence supporting this conclusion had been gathered by American and European scholars associated with the seen tifie management movement. Collectively these individuals undertook a vast quantity of practical worktime research which enabled them to accumulate many examples of how industrial efficiency could be improved if working times were rationalised.2 In the post-war period the result of this research was used by European and American working class leaders and by intellectuals committed to social reform and/or industrial efficiency to galvanise workers and politicians into taking action to reduce standard working times. The evidence provided by the scientific managers was particularly important in undermining the argument that work times could not be reduced because this would undermine the