The Five-Hour Day

Six months ago, at a little-reported meeting, a group of New York labor leaders called for a union--any union--to demand a 20-hour work week. "It was only meant to dramatize the fight for shorter hours," recalls one labor chief. "No one ever thought we'd get a volunteer."

But the call fitted comfortably into the ambitions of Harry Van Arsdale Jr., 56, who is head of Manhattan's Local 3 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers and president of the New York City Central Labor Council. As a top unionist in the nation's biggest city, Harry Van Arsdale could scarcely be disregarded as a possible successor to A.F.L.-C.I.O. President George Meany. But he needed to be more conspicuously known.

Two weeks ago, Van Arsdale demanded a cut from 30 hours to 20 hours in the work week for 9,000 master construction electricians, led them out on strike. He bargained from enviable strength; his electricians could paralyze the city's $1.25 billion building industry. Last week Van Arsdale's electricians won a basic 25-hour week, shortest in U.S. industry. Actually, they will work 30 hours. But by being paid for five hours a day five days a week on straight time, plus an extra hour a day at time and a half, they will collect $161.20 a week. Previously, the construction electricians had worked six hours a day plus one required "overtime" hour, earned $165.

The first employer group to buckle to Van Arsdale's demands was the Greater City Electrical Contractors' Association. Since this group represents 125 contractors who work primarily on city-sponsored construction jobs, the suspicion was widespread that City Hall had privately pressed them to settle. Within hours, the other 475 contractors met the same terms.

The deal, amounting to a 13% hourly wage raise, adds its bit to inflation, and aggravates New York's existing shortage of skilled electricians (as one concession, Van Arsdale agreed to allow 1,000 additional apprentices to be trained). More important, the settlement made Van Arsdale a man to reckon with in the labor movement, breathed new life into U.S. labor's drive to spread the work as a way to counter automation. In this year's most crucial labor negotiations, David J. McDonald promises that his United Steelworkers will make reduced work time "a fighting issue for 1962."

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