Image provided by: SEIU Local 503; Salem, OR
About The Oregon state employee. (Salem, Oregon.) 1944-195? | View Entire Issue (Jan. 1, 1947)
11 advancing years because of overwork and insufficient rest. Accidents on the job are less likely to occur when em ployees are not over-tired. The office and professional employee is subject to nervous fatigue, .often in addition to physical fatigue. A sedentary employee needs more time in the open air, more sunshine, more physical exercise, to keep him healthy and efficient because of the enervating effect of desk work. The 40-hour work week has been recommended by the Oregon State Civil Service Commission for all state em ployees except those on institutional staffs. The O.S.E.A. has submitted a' resolution to the Commission asking that this time be worked in five days, with a partial staff on Saturday for those departments which must be open on that day. The major objection to this arrangement seems to be the fear that the public' would not be adequately served because key employees would not be scheduled on Saturdays. At present, key employees—supervisors and admin istrators—must at times be out of their offices; Under.'*: the present system, schedules are worked out so that all supervisors in a given department will not be away on state business or vaca-r tions at the same time. This same ar rangement could be adopted with a scheduling of partial crews on a sixth working day; | The adoption of a 40-hour, 5 -day week is becoming even more generally accepted since the end of the war. Fol lowing is a summary of some fields of employment in which this working schedule has been and is now being adopted, ft will be noted that this list is not complete. Laborers, workmen and mechan ics on public projects in New York state). Many department stores and other retail establishments. State employees, including Cali- fbrnia and New York. City employees, including Port land, Ore., Los Angeles, Milwaukee, Wis., Washington, D.C., Minneapo lis, Providence, New York, Grand Rapids and other cities. Federal employees with certain ex ceptions. ■„ Employees engaged in or produc e s goods for interstate commerce, as required by the Federal Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938. - Printers, building trade employees, clothing workers, and employees of service industries. Equal consideration for one group of employees is especially long overdue. The tendancy? among institutions which function 24 hours a day has been to re quire employees to work 48 to 60 hours per week. A careful look at the work ing situation and demands made, on these employees reveals the unfair phy sical and mental burden placed upon them. The work of institutional employees is extremely confining and often phy sically' hazardous. Most of these em ployees are dealing directly with pa tients' who are physically or mentally ill or who are socially maladjusted. To work successfully with these wards of the state, employees must be patient and understanding, physically fit and men tally alert. Overwork and resulting fa tigue lessen all of these qualities. In some institutions overworked employees have, not given adequate care to pa tients or inmates because of their own physical/ and mental weariness. Em ployees of state institutions have as great a need for maximum time for off-the-job-living as do other workers. There are now approximately 5 50 state eniployees Working 48 hours and over. Many of them axe institutional em ployees, - One circus elephant commented to another: "I’m getting sick and tired of working for peanuts!” —Soriano in Colliers
