[R-G] [BillTottenWeblog] The Pursuit Of Happiness

[Bill Totten]

A six-hour day at the Kellogg Company plant liberated time for family
and community, and provided jobs for the unemployed

by Benjamin Hunnicutt

It's About Time! (IC#37), Winter 1994, Page 34


The forty-hour-plus workweek has been part of the US job system for so
many years that many people think of it as a natural law. Historian
Benjamin Hunnicutt has spent years researching one company - Kellogg's -
that broke that law by cutting work hours. He talked to hundreds of
workers, many of whom recall the freedom and creativity unleashed by the
extra time. Hunnicutt, who is the author of Work Without End (1990), is
in the process of writing his findings on Kellogg's into a book, which
will be published by Temple University Press.


On December 1 1930, at the start of the Great Depression, W K Kellogg
replaced the traditional three daily, eight-hour shifts in the Battle
Creek, Michigan, cereal plant with four six-hour shifts. From now on, W
K declared, his Cornflakes and Shredded Wheat would be produced by a
company with a conscience, willing to do its share to fight the
depression. By adding one entire shift, he reasoned, thirty percent more
jobs would be added at the plant - jobs desperately needed by the
unemployed in the city.

Kellogg's six-hour day was an instant success, attracting national media
coverage and the attention of Herbert Hoover's administration. The
initiative won strong support from prominent businessmen and labor
leaders all over the country, and from community leaders and workers in
Battle Creek. Observers throughout the world speculated that Kellogg's
experiment offered a practical way out of the depression, and in light
of the fact that hours of labor had been steadily declining for over a
century, was almost certainly a foretaste of things to come.

W K and his lieutenants believed that the six-hour day would
revolutionize industry because the balance of the workers' lives would
shift from concerns about money and jobs to concerns about freedom. The
true miracle of welfare capitalism would thereby be revealed: expanding
leisure. Under the direction of enlightened industrialists such as W K,
the exchange of goods, services, and labor in the free market would not
have to result in mindless consumerism or eternal exploitation of people
and resources. Rather, workers would be liberated by increasingly higher
wages and shorter hours for the final freedom promised by the
Declaration of Independence - the Pursuit of Happiness.

Through the depression years, the six-hour day functioned as W K Kellogg
and Lewis J Brown, the company president, hoped. Jobs were created as
the company payroll grew. Plant employees seemed delighted to have more
time of their own, especially so since their weekly paychecks were only
a little smaller. Workers were paid for seven hours during the first
year of the six-hour day, but beginning in the second year, total wages
were raised back to the nominal level of the eight-hour day.

Productivity was up, both because of the introduction of new technology
and because of Kellogg's innovative approach to hours and work
incentives. In essence, the management of Kellogg's was sharing the
benefits of that increased productivity with the workers in the form of
free time.


Family and Community Life

We have excellent information about what workers said about shorter
hours. In 1932, the Women's Bureau of the US Department of Labor sent a
research team to Battle Creek to interview Kellogg's women workers. The
team found nearly 85 percent preferred the six-hour shift, primarily
because it provided "more time for family activities and home duties and
leisure" and because it helped some of the unemployed find work.

The great majority of the Kellogg women used "freedom" or closely
related words when the agents asked them to compare the eight-hour and
six-hour shifts.

The second most commonly used pattern of words had to do with control
and possession; the women spoke about "my work", "my own time", "time to
myself", or "enables". Several women told the agents that the balance of
their life seemed to be shifting from constraint/servitude toward
freedom/control.

Interviews and surveys I conducted more recently confirm the findings of
the Women's Bureau study.

For Susan Smith*,  one of the Kellogg employees I talked to, work was
never the central part of life. The extra time she had as a result of
the six-hour shift allowed her to get her housework out of the way and
get on to what she saw as the real part of the day: reading, walking,
writing. She was self-educated, and it was in the few hours between
routine housework and the job that she could keep the life of her mind
and spirit alive, and find time to be involved in her community.

[*These names are pseudonyms to protect the privacy of those interviewed.]

Many of the women found routine, repetitive housework to be a burden,
but they enjoyed canning, sewing, gardening, and other household
activities that had a sense of 19th century craftsmanship to them.

Josephine Isley* spoke enthusiastically about canning at home during her
early days at Kellogg's, remembering it as a family project that "we all
enjoyed". To her, canning wasn't work in the same way that the job at
Kellogg's was work. Certainly canning required effort - great effort in
some cases to get her sons involved. But it was a productive activity
that provided a number of important non-financial benefits; the most
important was that her family was together doing something worthwhile.
After they were recruited, Isley recalled that her "sons opened up to
talk freely" and that during such activities "we were the most together
as a family". Because of such activities "we were better parents".

She contrasted such complex activities with the "silly" kinds of leisure
pastimes (TV and video games) which, together with modern jobs, take all
the time from family activities.

George Howard* wrote that "the six-hour shift let dad be with four boys
at ages when that was important".

The shorter shift made a difference on the job as well. Roberta Babcock*
wrote "I retired before they did away with the six-hour day ... but from
my observation in talking to friends who were still working, there was a
vast difference in attitudes regarding their work. They more or less
lost interest and didn't look forward to going in to work like we all
did on six hours. Then, there was a much more relaxed attitude, not the
tension that exists on eight hours. They all liked the additional money
but felt it wasn't worth the constant hassle."

Like generations of workers before them in Europe and the United States,
the Kellogg's women also saw the shorter hours as a moral act,
symbolizing their willingness to share their good fortune with others.
They criticized those who didn't support the six-hour policy as
"money-hungry work hogs".

Although there is no comparable survey from the 1930s for the men, there
is strong evidence that their general support was similar. In addition
to plant-wide votes taken in the 1930s and 1940s in which men voted
three to one for a six-hour shift, interviews with surviving male
workers support this claim. To a man, workers who still remember the
1930s recall that there was nearly total support at the plant, and that
the few who opposed shorter hours were branded as misfits and "work hogs".

Community life was strengthened and opened as well. Although there is no
hard data on changes in the use of libraries and recreational
facilities, interviews with some 500 residents of Battle Creek who lived
during this period and a review of the 1932 women's survey indicate that
there was a strengthening of the traditional institutions that thrive
when people have free time: amateur sports, bars, clubs, churches,
community service.

The six-hour shift also represented a new opportunity to do things
beyond the traditional. There was a sense of expectation and
experimentation. One woman learned how to fly, for example. Schools were
well-attended by adults interested in personal enrichment, the arts, or
getting a better job. People would go to the city. There was a lot of
discussion about this opportunity to create something new.


A Post-War Shift

After 1938, Kellogg management soured on the short shift, and the
company began to withdraw support. This was in part because of union
demands that all workers be put on the six-hour shift; departments that
had needed extra scheduling flexibility had until then remained on an
eight-hour shift.

Also, the fixed costs associated with each worker on the payroll had
increased. Kellogg management had tried to prorate retirement pay,
insurance benefits, and other benefits, but the union had pressed for
increases.

Another factor was that Kellogg himself stepped down, turning over
management of the plant to Watson Vanderploeg, a banker from Chicago who
didn't share Kellogg's welfare capitalist philosophy.

Complying with Franklin Roosevelt's executive order mandating a longer
work week as a wartime measure, the Kellogg plant went to three
eight-hour shifts in the early days of World War Two. But prompted by
the union, management reluctantly promised to return to the six-hour day
as soon as the war ended.

After the war, management tried to convince workers to continue working
eight hours. Despite generous money incentives and company pressure,
workers voted three to one in 1945 and again in 1946 to return to the
short shift.

Management insisted that "those who want it" be allowed to work longer
hours. Workers were divided by this tactic. Senior men in skilled crafts
were more interested in working longer for more money and less
interested in sharing their work. This group formed a coalition with
management and together they began to challenge the six-hour supporters.
They did this largely by trying to persuade others in the plant to join
them in voting for eight-hour days. They began to talk about "necessity"
as an absolute and unchanging reality, the importance of "full-time
work", and the unimportance of "leisure".


Romanticizing Work

Embracing the new "Human Relations" techniques of business management,
Kellogg's management tried to convince employees that work was the
center of life, important for its own sake. Echoing management's
rhetoric, senior male workers joined management in supporting work as an
ideal, affirming work as life's center and organizing principle. A few
workers and union leaders even joined the more loquacious managers in
romanticizing "The Job" and raising work to heroic and mythic proportions.

During the depression and the 1940s, Kellogg's workers had spoken of
necessity declining as wages increased, of the possibility of a person
getting "enough" or "too much", and of being able to "share the work".
They had also spoken of their "needs" in relation to non-monetary
values, saying things such as, "I need the extra money, but I need the
time at home more".

But after the 1950s, the majority of the eight-hour workers abandoned
the language of freedom and control that both men and women had used for
over fifty years, insisting that money was the only real job benefit.
They insisted that they never had "enough" to work less than full-time.
Shorter hours for less money was "stupid", "silly", "crazy", "wasted",
et cetera and only for the "weak girls", "lazy, sissy men", or
"housewives" who really didn't need to work or didn't realize the
seriousness of The Job.

This issue divided workers along gender and class lines. More and more,
leisure was feminized. Those with power and status in the community
stood to lose out if another part of life - leisure, community, family -
made competitive claims to meaning and significance in the lives of the
workers, along with claims on their time and allegiance.

If the most important part of people's lives is outside the context of
work, who is in control? Traditionally women have had more power in the
home and in the community. So the battle over time became a power
struggle between those who wanted work to continue in its central role
and those who were claiming the importance of other parts of the
culture. To a significant degree, this division came down between sexes
and classes.


The Six-Hour Mavericks

Through the late 1950s and 1960s, more of the six-hour departments voted
to go to eight-hour shifts. But the workers in the remaining departments
closed ranks, becoming a mutually supportive and combative group. After
1960, the majority of six-hour workers were women.

The six-hour mavericks believed they were fighting labor's historic
battle against unemployment. The local union had given up that effort on
a local level in favor of supporting politicians who claimed they would
conquer unemployment by creating more jobs at the national level. But
the mavericks still spoke about unemployment as a local problem; the
unemployed were laid-off friends, neighbors, and relatives.

The primary reason most of the mavericks gave for their being at work in
the first place was necessity. Nonetheless, this group continued to
insist that it was possible to make "enough" on the short shift to live
reasonably. They also spoke of balancing the need for money and the need
for free time by limiting their work hours.

This group also hoped that shorter hours would revitalize the home and
community. If the family spent more time at home as the industrial work
day diminished, more energy for home-making would be available,
housework could be shared, and the positive parts of home-making
accentuated. The home and neighborhood, rather than factories, shops,
and stores, might then grow in importance.

By the late 1950s, the remaining six-hour mavericks were not only
fighting a losing battle with Kellogg management and senior craftsmen,
they were facing the intrusion of mass culture.

During the 1940s and 1950s, consumerism increased as a cultural force
nationwide. Workers in Battle Creek offered more resistance than others,
unwilling at first to give up their time for "living" to the lure of new
things to buy.

But after the 1950s, mass amusements, radio, and TV began their
domination of leisure time. Passive culture consumption began to replace
the traditional active practice and creation of culture. Why go see the
women play baseball when you can watch the Detroit Lions on TV? Why do
your own canning when you can buy canned goods at the supermarket? Why
do anything in leisure time when you can pay someone else to do it?

As leisure lost its cultural role, emptied of activity and community and
family meaning, consumerism strengthened. After the the centrality of
work was reaffirmed and abundant leisure branded as only for "silly
girls", consumerism no longer had a rival in Battle Creek.


The End of the Six-Hour Shift

In this environment, the remaining six-hour workers had little chance.
Under siege through the 1960s and 1970s, the group nevertheless held
their position until the issue came to a head in the summer of 1984. The
company claimed that strong competitive pressure within the cereal
industry was forcing it to make its work force more "efficient".
Singling out the six-hour departments for cutbacks, Kellogg's Board of
Directors threatened to relocate most of the jobs at the plant to other
cities unless all six-hour departments voted to go to an eight-hour
shift immediately.

Pressured by the union and threatened by the company, a majority of the
six-hour workers voted on December 11 1984, to accept the longer hours .


A Culture of Work & Consumerism

Most economists and historians assume that the reason working hours have
not gotten shorter for fifty years and that we are now increasingly
overworked is because we can't afford to work less.

The Kellogg story demonstrates that the "necessity" to work full-time
does not come from on high, but is the product of changes in community
beliefs, values, and culture.

Consumerism was a strong competitor for the extra time. Moreover, as
leisure became little more than TV, its attractiveness waned.

Class and gender interests, traditions, and allegiances also helped
determine the course of events. It was no accident that women were the
strongest and most persistent of the six-hour advocates, doggedly
criticizing the work-centered life and promoting alternative social
structures, activities, and values.

After World War Two, for reasons of community status and power,
Kellogg's managers and senior male workers promoted work, trivialized
leisure, and made shorter hours into an issue strongly associated with
feminine values. Their position set them apart from six-hour women, who
were looking outside the job to the family, school, and community for
meaning and satisfaction, control, and status.

Over fifty years, the debate in Battle Creek evolved from strong support
of "less work and more life" in 1930s and 1940s to a reaffirmation of
work as the center of life and a rejection of increasing free time.

This cultural change, rather than economic necessity, is the fundamental
reason why the six-hour day ended at Kellogg's.

_____

The New Economic Gospel Of Consumption

Where did our culture pick up the notion that there is no such thing as
enough? That we have to work long hours our whole lives just to get by?
That we have to have the latest gadget, clothes, cars, and so on?

Ben Hunnicutt, in his book, Work Without End (1990), describes the way
these notions were consciously promoted starting in the 1920s.
Consumerism was the business world's answer to "demand saturation". The
idea that people would have enough, and therefore both buy less and work
less, was not appealing to the business leaders of the day.

The following is excerpted with permission from Work Without End,
published by Temple University Press.

In the 1920s, work was becoming critically scarce because, as so many
observers agreed, human needs for work's products were being satisfied.
At the same time, traditional motives for working were diminishing due
to the fact that basic needs were being met.

It's "perfectly clear that the middle class American already buys more
than he needs", but "unless we have a greater outlet for our goods ...
as manufacturing efficiency increases, there will be larger groups with
too much leisure", observed business spokesperson Walter Henderson Grimes.

Since many Americans had achieved a standard of living above "need",
economic growth seemed doomed.

By the mid-1920s, the fears of businessmen that people had too little
work were gradually replaced by a new and vigorous optimism, which
industrial relations counselor E S Cowdrick called the "new economic
gospel of consumption".

The good news was that increased consumption could save economic growth
and redeem work. If existing markets were being saturated, then the
reasonable response would be to find new markets and increase consumption.

Growth in the "new era" of abundance, however, seemed to be complicated
by the fact that workers did not desire new goods and services -
automobiles, chemicals, appliances, and amusements - as spontaneously as
they did the old ones - food, clothing, and shelter.

It would be the hard work of investors, marketing experts, advertisers,
and business leaders, as well as the spending examples set by the rich,
that would promote consumption.

With this, the business community broke its long concentration on
production, introduced the age of mass consumption, founded a new view
of progress in an abundant society, and gave life to the advertising
industry.

- Benjamin Hunnicutt

Last Updated 29 June 2000.

Copyright (c) 1994, 1996 by Context Institute

http://www.context.org/ICLIB/IC37/Hunnicut.htm


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