Part-time work

“ If you open that new restaurant, he was going to hire 20 or 30 new people. There are 20 or 30 people in Louisiana right now who could have had a job, a job that could have helped them to provide for their family, a job that could have helped them to pay for their school. Those jobs are not going to be created. That is just one example. There are multiple examples. How about this one? How about if you are a part-time worker now. The backbone of our economy can never be part-time work, but there is always a place for part-time work. ”

“ If you've got a temp worker putting in 20-plus hours a week, you better start considering him or her like you would a part-time worker" — and provide employee benefits. The ruling indicated that a temporary worker can be considered a "common-law employee" if the person's work was controlled not by the placement agency but by the company for which the work was being done. Microsoft plans to appeal. ”

“ Part-time workers employed for less than the scheduled workweek were hired at a specified schedule of hourly rates obtained by dividing the weekly wage paid the regular employees by the number of hours in the regular workweek. ”

“ Similar approbation and admiration are extended to those who, while already earning their living by a reasonable day’s work, employ their spare time, or a part of it, in gratuitous activities of the kinds referred to. It may be safely said that by far the greater portion of this kind of work is done by people who are simultaneously earning an income in middle class professions or by the less exhausting forms of wage labor. ”

“ If we got out of Washington, DC, if we went to the American people and said what are your top priorities—we actually have. We don’t have to hypothesize about that. The American people over and over again say jobs and the economy are their top priorities. The American people want ObamaCare stopped because it is not working, it is killing jobs, it is pushing people into part-time work. Yet this Senate has not been listening to the American people. ”

“ "The greater part of the systematic soldiering, however, is done by the men with the deliberate object of keeping their employers ignorant of how fast work can be done."
"So universal is soldiering for this purpose that hardly a competent workman can be found in a large establishment, whether he works by the day or on piece work, contract work, or under any of the ordinary systems, who does not devote a considerable part of his time to studying just how slow he can work and still convince his employer that he is going at a good pace." ”

“ The "long turn" of twenty-four hours and the "seven-day week" I have never heard defended, either in the mill by any foreman or workman, or outside by any member of the management, or even in a public statement. If, by an arrangement of extra workers, it were possible to eliminate these features and still keep the twelve-hour work-day for six days a week, there would, I think, be a certain number of men ready enough to work under that arrangement. I met one man, for example, who said: "Good job, [Pg 151] work all time, no spend, good job save." ”

“ Nothing is from this point of view more characteristic than the designation of the workers who work full time as "full-timers," and the children under 13 who are only allowed to work 6 hours as "half-timers." The worker is here nothing more than personified labour-time. All individual distinctions are merged in those of "full-timers" and "half-timers." [30]
section 3.—branches of english industry without legal limits to exploitation. ”

“ Perhaps they do not use their spare time to the best advantage. That is not for us to say, provided their work is better than it was when they did not have spare time. We are not of those who claim to be able to tell people how to use their time out of the shops. ”

“ When the day’s work is completed the workman, if paid on time, will frequently remain at work, but doing nothing until the “hooter goes.” In other cases if paid on a piece-work basis, the workman will sometimes leave the shop after his day’s work or “stint” is finished. I have investigated cases where workmen coming on at 7 a.m. ”

“ If you work for a man, in heaven's name work for him.
If he pays you wages that supply you your bread and butter, work for him—speak well of him, think well of him, stand by him and stand by the institution that he represents.
I think if I worked for a man, I would work for him. I would not work for him a part of the time, and the rest of the time work against him. I would give an undivided service or none. If put to the pinch, an ounce of loyalty is worth a pound of cleverness. ”

“ Hours for the domestic worker must be definite, as they are in shop or factory work. The working day must be shortened. Time outside of working hours must be absolutely the worker's own. The worker must either live outside the home in which she works, or must have privacy, convenience, comfort, and the opportunity to receive her friends, as she would at home. ”

“ That means if you take off a Friday that you have earned by working overtime your employer could simply make you work Saturday without paying overtime because you haven't worked your full 40-hour week. ”

“ When friends arrive unexpectedly, however, or when a dinner party or a big social function takes place in the home, an eight hour schedule may be the cause of great inconvenience, unless a previous agreement has been made to meet just such occasions. It is certain that some compensation is due to all domestic employees for the extra long hours of work caused by unusual events in the home life of their employers, and many ways have been devised already to remunerate them. ”

“ What do you call work?—spending eight hours a day in an office to help make somebody’s business a success, and incidentally to earn the money for your bread and butter? But that’s a third of the time you’re given on earth. ”

“ The only time he gets anything for his work is on pay day. The rest of the time he's workin' for nothin', week in and week out. Say he works forty-four hours a week. When does he get his pay? While he's workin'? ”

“ They’re not forced by the company to work seven days a week—only they’re not given pay enough to let them take even one day off without feeling it. This very motorman I was talking with got to telling me why he was working so extra hard just then. ”

“ If the abbreviated time of eight hours per day for five days of the week, and four hours on Saturday, constitute a week's work, the laborer has more to pay for all of the necessities of life than he would have were full hours and a fair equivalent given for the wages he receives. ”

“ In the basement of the hotel some pantry girl, sweltering between the toaster and the egg boiler, is watching the clock to see if rush time isn't almost by.
Granted at the start, if you remember, and granted through each individual job, it was artificial—my part in it all. But what in the world was there to do about that? I was determined that not forever would I take the say-so of others on every phase of the labor problem. Some things I would experience for myself. ”

“ All hands together we'll make our demand;
When you and I, Bill, lay down our tools, Bill,
Fold up your arms, Bill, and walk off the job.
Why does a short work day and a long pay always go together? ”

“ The casual hand, I propose to define as an employee who is not employed for a fortnight continuously and who is not entitled to a week's notice before his employment is determined. A new light was thrown by the evidence in this case on the growing tendency of some men to depend on the high rates for casual work only, to enable them to work when they thought fit, and idle when they felt inclined.... ”

“ If regularly engaged as time-workers, they made themselves easy in the prospect of wages that allowed them to sleep under a roof and eat at certain intervals of the day; if employed on piece-work, they might at any moment find themselves wageless, but this, being a familiar state of things, did not trouble them. ”

“ The setting of a time in which the work is to be done is a great stimulus to the worker, and is also necessary, because upon the attainment of this set time depends the ability of the managers to pay the bonus to the worker, and also to maintain a schedule, or time-table, that will make possible the maintaining of necessary conditions for others, in turn, to earn their bonuses. ”

“ Weekly Rest in Commerce and Offices, Report VII (1) , International Labour Conference, 39th Sess., Geneva, 1956 (1955) , passim, especially at 18, 24-26. 'This tendency to ensure that the weekly rest is taken at the same time by all workers on the day established by tradition or custom has an obvious social purpose, namely to enable the workers to take part in the life of the community and in the special forms of recreation which are available on certain days.' Id., at 24. ”

“ I have only one room to work and eat in, or I should lose more time. Altogether I labour 141⁄4 hours every day, and I must work on Sundays—at least 40 Sundays in the year. One may as well work as sit fretting. ”

“ There are necessarily many vacant hours in your business, which ought not [52] to pass unemployed. I pretend not to suggest particular objects for your attention, but only the habit generally of active employment, which, while making your time useful and agreeable to yourself, will be the best safeguard to your virtue. ”

“ These persons are, if he is an apprentice, an older worker; if he is a journeyman, the worker next to him, or the foreman, or someone over him. An important fact bearing on this subject is that it is not to the pecuniary advantage of any particular person to give this teaching. In the first place, if the man be a fellow-worker, he will want to do his own work without interruption, he will not want to take the time off ”

“ One of the steam 614 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY
shops gives a half-holiday on Saturday all the year around, as the Swedish shops do in the slack months. One man, a tailor working by himself, said that in the seven or eight months of his busy season he worked from ten to eighteen hours per day and often all night to fill his employer's orders on time. In this part of the year he could make about $20 per week. ”

“ In some shops week-workers are locked out for the half-day if late, or docked for every minute of time lost, an extra fine being often added. Piece workers have great freedom as to hours, and employers complain much of tardiness and absenteeism. The mere existence of health and labor laws insures privileges formerly unheard of; half-holidays in summer, vacation with pay, and shorter hours are becoming every year more frequent, better workshops are constructed, and more comfortable accommodations are being furnished. ”

“ Accustom all the servants under your direction to rise early, and let them breakfast at an early hour. If orders be given betimes in the morning, there will be more time to execute them,—servants will perform their work with more ease,—and less hands will be required. If the economy of time were duly considered, and a regular plan of daily employment laid down, much business may be effected without hurry or fatigue. ”

“ And let it be [Pg 65] admitted that calling regularly at an old apple tree is far short of a full man’s work in the world, even when such calling falls outside of his shop or office-hours. For there are no such hours. The business of life allows no spare time any more. One cannot get rich nowadays in office-hours, nor become great, nor keep telegraphically informed, nor do his share of talking and listening. Everybody but the plumber and paper-hanger works overtime. How the earth keeps up a necessary amount of whirling in the old twenty-four-hour limit is more than we can understand. ”

“ And then if they are fagged, and he don't think they'll be able to keep up the pace he wants them to work at, he pays them off for two hours' work, and then goes to the gates for another batch—sixty this time, most likely, because at eleven o'clock the labour-master will be round to see how they are getting on, and to see that the number of workers are all right. ”

“ It does not take a long time to learn, and full wages are paid while learning. I employ my help the year round, though less hours are used for a day's work during the winter. Ten is the number of working hours during the summer, spring, and autumn ”

“ The day-laborer, when his work is done, receives the wages of his labor, and goes to his home content and with a cheerful spirit, whistling on his way, his mind free from all perplexing plans and cares, and enjoys his evening in pleasant intercourse with his family and neighbors, and, when he retires to rest, has the blessing of sound sleep, the reward of his healthful toil: while his wealthy employer, whose lot he may perhaps be unwisely inclined to envy, has, perchance, his mind agitated and his rest disturbed by busy schemes and worrying doubts and anxieties. ”

“ As you know, since the beginning of February, I've been working on Wikipedia and Nupedia as a part-time volunteer. I haven't been able to do nearly as much as I wish I could do, but job-hunting and money-making activities necessarily occupy a great deal of my time. Unfortunately, I do not expect to see, within the foreseeable future, any sort of compensation for the time and responsibility I've continued to hold in the projects. Now that I'm unemployed, I can ill afford to spend my free time this way. ”

“ If you do things by the job, you are perpetually driven: the hours are scourges. If you work by the hour, you gently sail on the stream of Time, which is always bearing you on to the haven of Pay, whether you make any effort, or not. ”

“ There never has been a time in our history when work was so abundant or when wages were as high, whether measured by the currency in which they are paid or by their power to supply the necessaries and comforts of life. ”