{"resolved":true,"match_type":"uuid","source_type":"original_book","book_id":"10f0f318-a2eb-4ea9-8798-d4fb0304f8c3","title":"Time for Things Labor, Leisure, and the Rise of Mass Consumption","author":null,"edition":null,"publisher":null,"year":null,"isbn":"9780674250529","requested_by":"printed_page","book":{"source_type":"original_book","book_id":"10f0f318-a2eb-4ea9-8798-d4fb0304f8c3","id":"10f0f318-a2eb-4ea9-8798-d4fb0304f8c3","uuid":"10f0f318-a2eb-4ea9-8798-d4fb0304f8c3","title":"Time for Things Labor, Leisure, and the Rise of Mass Consumption","normalized_title":"timeforthingslaborleisureandtheriseofmassconsumption","author":null,"edition":null,"publisher":null,"year":null,"isbn":"9780674250529","isbns":["9780674250529","9780674250536","9780674979512"],"parsed":true,"ai_readable":true,"document_type":"book","page_count":355,"navigation_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/book/10f0f318-a2eb-4ea9-8798-d4fb0304f8c3","title_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/title/Time%20for%20Things%20Labor%2C%20Leisure%2C%20and%20the%20Rise%20of%20Mass%20Consumption","fixed_page_url_template":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/book/10f0f318-a2eb-4ea9-8798-d4fb0304f8c3/page/{printed_page}","path_api_url_template":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/book/10f0f318-a2eb-4ea9-8798-d4fb0304f8c3/page/{printed_page}","read_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/read/10f0f318-a2eb-4ea9-8798-d4fb0304f8c3","page_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/books/10f0f318-a2eb-4ea9-8798-d4fb0304f8c3/page","search_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/books/10f0f318-a2eb-4ea9-8798-d4fb0304f8c3/search"},"page":{"printed_page":59,"pdf_page":67,"physical_index":67,"physical_index_base":0,"printed_page_status":"recognized","page_sha256":"4d8c88fa65c03f68fc24f51ab84727b12d38676a77120b61154870f79e4a781e"},"chapter":"FOR","content":"Given the mid-century strength of labor, it is implausible that the switch from turning more productivity into fewer work hours to channeling it almost exclusively into increasing total real wages just reflected the absolute power of business to impose its preferences on labor. American workers must, at least to some extent, have consented to the new work-time regime.28 There is some suggestive evidence to that efect in Benjamin Hunnicutt’s (1996) history of W. W. Kellogg’s experiment with a thirty-hour week. The experiment was introduced by management in the 1930s to address the problem of unemployment, by distributing the same amount of work to more people. Kellogg also felt that the quality of work would increase with fewer hours. After the war, however, Kellogg’s management changed its position on the issue and tried to return to the forty-hour week. Some workers objected and fought to defend the six-hour day, but significantly, many did not, while some actively supported management’s efort to undermine the experiment with shorter hours. Moreover, one prominent development in the second half of the twentieth century was the introduction of overtime, following the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938. While the point of the act was to curtail work hours, working overtime subsequently became very common among workers, so much so that the system of production came to depend on it, and “working to rule” became a form of industrial action. The willingness of wage earners to work overtime suggests that there was a quite widespread preference for income over time. Evidence for the active embrace by workers of longer hours is also provided, in a later period, by the results of a 1985 Bureau of Labor Statistics survey, in which workers were asked about their preferences for work hours (Shank 1986). The survey found that 64.9 percent of workers expressed satisfaction with their current hours and pay, 27.5 percent said that they would prefer to work longer hours to increase their incomes, while only 7.5 percent wanted fewer hours with less pay. There is, then, a stark contrast between the long tradition, stretching from the 1830s to the 1930s, of American labor fighting for a shorter working week and the postwar era of collective bargaining and productivity-based wage increases (Foner and Roediger 1987; Hunnicutt 1988). The shift between the two eras cannot be accounted for simply in terms of the interests and coercive power of business.\n\nEmpirical Pattern in the United States\n\n59","previous_page":58,"next_page":60}