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The article comments on an article by Joseph Garbarino which examined the fringe barrier theory. The theory states the increasing cost of fringe benefits had encouraged the greater use of overtime work. In testing the theory, Garbarino compares the cost of reaching an increase in man-hour requirement by working present employees overtime with cost of adding new employees. Garbrino's estimates of cost differential between fringe benefits and overtime vary widely depending on the assumptions one makes in determining fringe costs such as the cost of unemployment insurance.

The article presents the author's reply to a commentary by Robert M. Macdonald which criticizes his article on fringe barrier theory and overtime behavior. There are assumptions involve in the discussion of the simultaneous existence of large amounts of overtime work and substantial unemployment. The author insists that he is least sympathetic to the assumption that there has been an increase in overtime worked relative to some measure of labor market conditions. Macdonald calls attention to a weakness in the method for calculating the cost of unemployment compensation. According to the author, he was concerned only with the impact of increases in fringe costs on the employment decision.

The article focuses on the collective bargaining agreement entered into by the Metal, Mechanical and Electrical Industries Workers' Union of Barra Mansa, Brazil and the National Steel Co. The collective bargaining agreement is a crisis-type agreement which was designed to recover the real income losses of a country burdened by inflation. The agreement establishes shift differential, overtime rates and premium pay for particular jobs. The contract also has provisions relating to family allowance, a bi-weekly premium system for regular attendance and rest periods.

There is currently wide concern over the employment impact of overtime and of the cost of "fringe benefits." The data on overtime worked and the role of fringe costs in employment decisions are examined in this study. The analysis suggests that there is no distinct upward trend in overtime, and that the usual method of supporting the argument that there is a "fringe barrier" to expanded employment is insufficient and in need of refinement. It is concluded, how ever, that the entire system of financing our economic security programs, public as well as private, may need to be reexamined on an integrated basis and with its employment consequences in mind. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article comments on the research paper by professor Harold Vatter published in an issue of the journal "Industrial and Labor Relations Review" which argues that three neglected influences on hours of work have impaired the conceptual validity of the short-run, backward-sloping supply curve of labor, at least for operationally significant wage levels in the U.S. economy. Overtime rates implies a much weaker income effect than straight-time rates, therefore the willingness to work longer hours for an overtime premium is perfectly consistent with a preference for shorter hours at higher straight-time rates.

This article describes a procedure for adapting cluster analysis from its usual static, cross-sectional perspective to a dynamic, over-time perspective, and tests the sensitivity of results from using the new procedure to variations in data input and partitioning conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the author's response to comment on his article on hours of labor. The overtime pay arrangement is interpreted as an expression of the inelasticity of the individual's supply curve with respect to income for a significant range of straight-time rates in the zone above some going wage. In referring to the consumption content of leisure, it is stressed that to enjoy the leisure one has to work more to fill the leisure time with goods and services. The paucity of empirical evidence regarding the individual and market labor supply schedule in the very short run is not satisfactory.

In Part I of this paper, we developed an algorithm for finding planning horizons for the deterministic production smoothing problem when all demand was required to be met from regular production, under rather general assumptions for the production smoothing, and holding cost functions. Here, in Part II, we develop analogous planning horizons when the model is extended to include such factors as overtime, lost sales, simple subcontracting, undertime, and backlogging. Part II depends heavily on Part I. To avoid unnecessary tedium, all cost functions will be assumed to be stationary in Part II. Overtime, undertime, holding, and backlogging will be assumed to be convex increasing, all other costs linear and proportional. However, it is not difficult to see that the techniques of Part I can be utilized directly to cover more general cost functions. Part II concludes with a discussion of the application of our general approach to actual data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a formal model of the one-machine job-shop scheduling problem with variable capacity. Its primary interest focuses on the trade-off between overtime and detailed scheduling costs. The scheduling problem considered is minimizing the sum of weighted tardiness and weighted flow-time costs for a given capacity plan (i.e., a given overtime plan). The paper generalizes sequence-theory results to this case where possible, analyzes various lower-bounding structures for the problem, outlines a preliminary branch-and-bound algorithm, and illustrates several interesting features of the algorithm and bounding structures by an example. Extensions of the results to more complex environments are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents flexible working hours, their advantages for the employer and for the employee, their methods of application, and the reactions of different parties to this form of working time arrangement. It mentions that such a system facilitates time computing, encourages a decrease in short-term absenteeism and turnover, a réduction of internal traffic, a decrease of accidents on the way to work, a reduction of overtime, greater hiring advantages, and longer service to the consumer.

The article examines labor statistics on absence, overtime, and the structure of employees' compensation package. Several shortcomings of the various government bodies' approaches to labor statistics are discussed, primarily the use of macro-level statistics (such as a national income policy) to address micro-level issues (such as earnings or training). Two different statistical approaches are described, and the role of overtime and other incentive elements in the pay packet. The effects of incentive earnings and inflation on employees' effort-reward relationship are also considered.

A scheduling procedure is proposed for the static job shop problem with job due dates and overtime capability. An example is used to demonstrate the procedure and the generation of trade-off curves relating overtime and total tardiness for use in managerial evaluation of alternative schedules. Results are reported for a set of trial problems having 30 to 98 processing operations. An extension of the procedure is described for dynamic job shop scheduling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is based on the writer's impartial observation of trends especially in Switzerland. It describes variations in existing systems, legislative and administrative considerations and difficulties to be foreseen as well as advantages claimed for flexible working hours. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A study was made of the amount and type of absence on different shifts and on different days of the week for one department in a light engineering factory. Personal information about the people in the department was analysed with respect to absence using the technique of matched pairs comparisons. Several of the personal factors and also the frequency of overtime working were found to be related to the amount of absence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the works of the Medical Research Council's Industrial Psychology Research Unit in Great Britain during 1958-1967. A number of publications relating to the earlier Conditional Aid projects appeared at the beginning of this period. These concern communication and decision-making in industry and incentive payment systems. Also within the general field of motivation a number of studies were made of the practice of overtime, which had now become an accepted feature of the working week. Confirming evidence was provided that individual differences in overtime hours were related to family and financial responsibility. The question of employee choice in working hours was also examined in the context of working in shifts. In the light of increasing complexity in the information presented in the form of visual displays, perceptual problems were also studied from the viewpoint of the road user. Special attention was given to advance road direction signs of the type placed before road junctions.

Focuses on the aspects of overtime and moonlighting among workers in the U.S. Establishment of a work schedule and number of hours to be worked; Representation of work and income of workers; Utilization of indifference curve analysis.

This paper is concerned with the modeling and analysis of a one-machine two-product, integrated production-inventory system. A semi-Markovian model is developed which incorporates a state dependent control system heretofore not used in integrated production-inventory models. Control optimization is achieved through the use of Markov-renewal programming. The model is exercised over a range of parameters in order to determine the characteristics of the system. An analysis of the experimental results leads to the following conjectures about the production-inventory system: 1. For the production-inventory system, the economic manufacturing quantity is greater than that seen in the deterministically derived EMQ. The increase results primarily from increases in expected overtime costs and expected setup costs rather than increases in stockout costs. This is important for applications, since overtime and setup costs are a good deal easier to quantify than stockout costs in a real system. 2. Under some conditions, deterministically derived rules for the application of overtime have merit in a stochastic system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we apply the concept of generalized Lagrange multipliers, introduced by Everett [4], to the development of an algorithm for a one-period multiproduct production model, where the objective is to maximize profit subject to constraints on aggregate regular time and overtime production. We assume no difference between the cost of idle time and regular time labor, so that the regular time cost is fixed. Overtime cost is variable. The price for each product is constant (independent of quantity sold), and everything produced can be sold. The optimum production schedule (maximum profit) will depend upon revenues, overtime costs, setup times, and productivities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses how to minimize costs through the application of mathematical analysis. The article proposes that optimal decision rules may be derived for a quadratic cost function involving inventory, overtime, and employment costs, and how the numerical coefficients of the rules may be computed for any set of cost parameters. A set of linear equations is presented that allows computation of the production and employment schedule for any production period. The certainty equivalence property enables the industrial manager to use these solutions, which were derived for known future order receipts, as decision rules for the usual situation in which forecasts of future order receipts are subject to error.

Focuses on the increase of minimum wage rates in Australia. Economic factors influencing wage drift; Use of least squares method to calculate average overtime hours and pay; Effects of centralized wage fixation on wages.

The promised decrease of the average workweek below the present 40 hours is a myth. Three recent trends in the labor force are examined in terms of their impact on an expected increase in overtime and dual-jobholding rates: (1) changes in management philosophy and practice toward more job enrichment, (2) the increased participation of females, and (3) the increasing proportion of the labor force employed in the relatively inefficient service occupations. The author predicts a future increase in overtime among select occupations and a general rise in dual-job-holding families. In short, for those who are able to work and choose to do so, they will probably choose more of it. Moreover, the next major historical era that will substantially alter the distribution of work and nonwork activities will probably consist of "counter-work cultures" that will seek to legitimize a new series of alternative value systems for the use of human time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the importance of considering various factors for determining the real spendable amount of weekly earnings. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, which publishes the earnings series along with several other measures of how wage earners are faring, cannot control the misimpressions others may draw from any one of their statistics. Depending on what question is asked of the data, a variety of adjustments must be made to the earning series before it provides useful information. Correcting for overtime premium pay is conceptually straightforward, the only drawback is that available statistics adjust only for overtime in manufacturing. Correcting for variations in the official measure of average hours removes the effect on weekly earning of variations in hours stemming from both employment mix changes and changes in the average weekly hours of a typical individual. In order to get a picture of weekly, rather than hourly, earnings for an average worker, it would be necessary to account for variations in the amount of work as well as in hourly pay. To do this, adjustments could be made to eliminate that part of the variation in average hours arising from a changing employment mix, but the official series does not make them.

Presents the U.S. Supreme Court and National Labor Relations Board's decisions in several labor cases. Employer's refusal to bargain with a union that practiced racial discrimination in membership; J.P. Stevens and Co.'s violations of National Labor Relations Act by discriminatorily reducing the overtime work and by discriminatorily refusing to grant a wage increase and promotion.

Reports on court decisions in labor cases as of June 1972. Retention of employee status of a permanently replaced economic striker while waiting to be rehired or until he obtains 'substantially equivalent' employment elsewhere; Overtime and protected activity; Polling of eligible voters in a representation election.

Examines characteristics of overtime workers in the U.S. in May of 1967, 1969 and 1970. Incidence of premium pay for persons working overtime; Differences between persons receiving extra pay for overtime hours and those who were not; Demographic characteristics.

Discusses the results of a study which examined the patterns in overtime hours and premium pay of workers in the United States from 1967 to 1969. sustained high level of overtime hours reflecting the adjustment of working time to meet the requirements of final output; Suggestion that patterns of overtime hours in 1967 has continued during 1968 and 1969.

Analyzes the factors involved in overtime hours and premium pay in the United States. Increase of overtime among persons who reported working overtime regularly; Payment of premiums; Industry and occupational variations.

Analyzes data obtained during U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics' surveys of overtime hours and premium pay. Continued growth of employment; Upturn in the proportion on overtime; Likelihood of receiving premium pay for overtime; Problems of redistribution.

This paper develops planning-horizon theorems and algorithms for determining optimal production in period 1 when there are linear costs associated with overtime and inventory, and demand is deterministic. If overtime in each period is unrestricted and no shortages are permitted, then it is easily shown that the firm will have to know future demand for at most the next k* periods, where k* is determined by the ratio of the wage differential between overtime and regular time to the per unit holding cost per period. Using the k* concept, the paper determines planning horizons when both storage and backlogging of demand are allowed. If overtime constraints are imposed, a planning algorithm is proposed that requires less information on future demand than a linear programming model. Economic implications of this approach for decision-making and information processing in firms are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the effect of the operation of a commonly agreed list of piecework prices various industries in Great Britain. The author explores the variation of piecework price lists agreed in different industries. Payments system agreed is considered by the author as a simple example of straight piece-work, paid on a group basis and an incorporating a fall-back wage which has important features. The determinants of pieceworker's earnings are level of head rates, throughput per man-hour, number of hours worked, composition of throughput and overtime payments were discusses by the author.

This article reports on the useful appraisal and value of the Trade Union Movement in considering the development of labor policy and practice in Great Britain. The outline of procedures and negotiations which would diminish the effect of unofficial stoppages in the industry. The additional payments negotiated on the basis of productivity in different establishments. The rates of pay of the national agreements are taken into account in calculating overtime sickness payments holiday payments and lieu payments, cost of living bonuses and whole variety of other references.

This article examines whether it is always the stochastic nature of absenteeism which is responsible for increased overtime hours per man above the zero absentee level. Given the level of output to be provided, the level of technology, and the flow of capital services, a neoclassical production function can be inverted to determine a unique required flow of labor services. The firm decision problem is then to choose that combination of men and hours per man which will produce that flow, and which will minimize its labor costs. Employment costs per man are fixed in the sense of being independent of the exact number of hours that each employee works. These include the costs for such items as paid vacations, paid holidays, private welfare and insurance plans, and many legally required insurance payments. The constraint asserts that the flow of labor services is a function of the number of men employed and the number of hours per man. The inclusion of an absentee rate modifies the cost function, but in a non-symmetric way. In particular, the capitalized turnover costs must be paid regardless of whether an employee works on any given day. An increase in absenteeism increases the marginal cost of labor through additional workers in attendance, relative to the marginal cost of labor through additional overtime. An increase in absenteeism causes a substitution of additional overtime per man for workers in attendance. Based on the results, it is not always the stochastic nature of absenteeism which is responsible for increased overtime hours per man above the zero absentee level. This is due to the fact that a certainty absentee rate modifies the labor cost function in a nonsymmetric way so as to increase the marginal cost of labor purchased through additional workers relative to the marginal cost of labor purchased through increased hours per man. A stochastic absentee rate tends to increase the optimal employment stock above the certainty absentee rate level.

The article presents the study which aims to determine the variables associated with individual differences in overtime working among a group of monthly paid workers in Great Britain. The subjects of the study were 350 overseas telegraph operators. The study shows that the availability of large amount of overtime and the privilege of exchanging duties provide the workers a great deal of control over their hours of work. This freedom resulted in a wide variation in the amount of overtime worked by the workers.