Full text of Supplementary Wage Practices in American Industry, 1945-46 : Bulletin of the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics, No. 939

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Supplementary Wage Practices
in American Industry
1945-46

Bulletin N o. 939

UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF LABOR
L. B. Schwellenbach, Secretary
BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS
Ewan Clague, Commissioner

For sale by the Superintendent o f Documents, U. S. Government Printing Office, Washington 25, D. C.

Price 10 cents

[From the M onthly L abor R eview of
the Bureau of Labor Statistics
July, August, September, October, and November 1947 and March 1948 issues]

Letter o f Transmittal
U nited States D epartment of L abor ,
B ureau of L abor Statistics,
Washington, D . C ., M a y IS , 1 9 4 8 .

T he Secretary of L abor :
I have the honor to transmit herewith a report on selected wage practices in American
industry, 1945-46. Although collective bargaining and individual employer action with
respect to “ wages” still relate basically to wage rates and the earnings such rates yield,
increasing interest in working conditions and supplementary wage practices has developed
in recent years. Information on these practices, therefore, is necessary for a complete
picture of the American wage structure. The Bureau's industry wage study program pro
vides for the collection of data on some of these practices in each of the manufacturing and
non manufacturing industries surveyed. Such information is reported, together with basic
wage data, in each of the individual industry wage studies issued by the Division of Wage
Analysis. The present bulletin provides summary information on each of six types of
wage practices (vacation and sick leave plans, shift differentials, nonproduction bonuses,
incentive methods of pay, insurance and pension plans, and rate structure) in all of the
industries studied during 1945-46. Although many industries were not surveyed during
this period, those that were surveyed provide a relatively good cross-section of all manu
facturing industry. Information is also provided for selected nonmanufacturing industries.
The study was conducted in the Branch of Industry Wage Studies, Harry Ober, chief,
under the general direction of Lily Mary David and Kermit B. Mohn. Appropriate acknowl
edgment for individual contributions will be found in the form of footnotes to each selection
of the bulletin.
E wan C lague, Com m issioner .
H o n . L. B. S c h w e l l e n b a c h ,
Secretary o f Labor •

Contents
Page

Shift differentials in manufacturing, 1 9 4 5 -4 6 ____________________________________________
Extent of nonproduction bonuses, 1 9 4 5 -4 6 ._____________________________________________
Extent of practice_____________________________________________________________________
Form of bonus_________________________________________________________________________
Size of bonus payments_______________________________________________________________
Incentive pay in American industry, 1 9 4 5 -4 6 .___________________________________________
Prevalence of incentive methods_______________________
Nature of incentive plans____________________
Earnings vary with method of wage payment______________________________________
Manufacturing industries: wage rate structure, 1 9 4 5 -4 6 ______________________________
Extent of insurance and pensions in industrial employment____ ________________________
Regional differences___________________________________________________________________
Paid vacations and sick leave in industry, 19 45 -4 6_____________________________________
Method and coverage_________________________________________________________________
Formal paid vacation practices______________________________________________________
Manufacturing industries— ____________________________________________________
Nonmanufacturing industries___________________________________________________
Regional vacation practices_____________________________
Sick leave______ _______________________________________________________________________

(V)

1
3
3
4
4
5
5
7
8
8
10
12
14
14
15
15
16
17
17

T able 1.— Proportion o f manufacturing establishments with

S h ift D ifferen tia ls in
M a n u fa ctu rin g , 1945-461

late-shift operations paying shift differentials, by shift and
industry, 1 9 J $ -b 6
Percent paying
shift differ
entials for—

of manufacturing establishments
in the United States operating evening or night
shifts2 paid shift differentials in 1945-46; most
frequently these premium payments amounted to
5 cents an hour added to the first-shift hourly rate.
However, despite high war and postwar produc
tion levels during this period, only about a fourth
of the workers in the industries studied were
employed on late shifts. M ost of these employees
were on evening shifts; only about 1 worker in 16
was employed on a night-shift schedule.
Shift differentials increased in importance dur
ing the war; and the extension of the practice of
premium pay for late-shift work was an issue of
some significance during the period of wartime
wage stabilization.
The information presented here represents a
summary of shift-employment and shift-differ
ential practices in 56 industries studied by the
Bureau of Labor Statistics during 1945-46.3 T o
gether, these industries employed almost half of
all manufacturing workers and were representative
of all broad manufacturing industry groups except
rubber, petroleum refining, lumber, printing,
shipbuilding, and basic iron and steel.4
W ith a few exceptions, notably in the textile
industries, premium pay was about as common
for second- as for third-shift work (table 1). The
size of the premium, however, tended to be some
what greater for third than for second shifts.
Five cents was the most common second-shift
T

m a j o r it y

Industry

Third
Second and/or
shift
other
shifts
57

All manufacturing industries studied.
................................................. .
Apparel1
Knit outerwear............................... .
Knit underwear.............................. .

July 1946___
------ do---------

53
45
75

72
70
74

Chemicals3......................
Industrial chemicals.
Soap and glycerin.._

January 1946
July 1946___

71
63
94

75
91
79

88
88
100

Metalworking *...................................................
Aircraft engines and engine parts............ January 1945
Automobiles................................................. ........do...........
Communication equipment......................
Copper alloying, rolling, and drawing— Spring-sum
mer 1946.
Electric generating and distribution January 1945
equipment.
Electroplating, plating and polishing... ........do______
Fabricated structural steel....................... ........do______
Foundries, ferrous....................................... ....... do______
Foundries, nonferrous................................ ....... do______
Iron and steel forgings............................... ....... do...........
Machine tool acessories.............................. ....... do______
Machine tools.............................................. ....... do______
Machinery.................................................... ....... do...........
Oil burners, hot-water and steam heat- July 1946.—
ing apparatus.
Power boilers and associated products. . January 1945
Radios, radio equipment (except tubes) , ........do______
and phonographs.
Small arms................................................. ........... do...........
Stoves and ranges...................................... . July 1946___
Tanks________________________________ . January 1945
Tool and die jobbing sh op s..- ............... ........... do...........
April 1946—
January 1946
........do...........
July 1 9 4 6 ....
........do...........
April 1946—

Other manufacturing industries4
Bakeries............................. ........
Cigarettes................................. .
Corrugated and fiber boxes...
Fiber cans and tubes...............
Folding paper boxes.........
Paperboard.........................
Pulp and paper..................
Structural clay products..

1 Prepared in the Bureau’s Wage Analysis Branch by Karl Hafen.
1. e., second or third and/or other shifts.
» The industries studied are listed in table 1. The individual surveys
summarized here covered a representative group of plants rather than all
firms in each industry: altogether 15,636 establishments were studied. As
these surveys were made primarily to obtain wage-rate information, a larger
proportion of large establishments and of establishments in large cities and in
certain regions were included in order to permit presentation of separate data
by region. Moreover, the proportion of establishments studied varied from
industry to industry. No attempt was made in the summary of shift-differ
ential practices, presented in terms of number of establishments, to compen
sate for differences in coverage between industries or between segments of the
same industry, although the information on shift employment was adjusted
to allow for these differences.
4 Although field studies were not made in the printing, rubber tire and
tube, shipbuilding, or basic iron and steel industries, shift differentials are
known to be widely paid in these industries.

96
78

96
71
57

66
72

88
88

56
79
73
85
79

78
85

100

76
79

83
83
90
73

100

84
55

Textiles.............................................
Cotton textiles.........................
Hosiery, full-fashioned............
Hosiery, seamless....................
Rayon and silk textiles.......... .
Textile dyeing and [finishing .
Woolens and worsted textiles.

July 1945___
January 1945
October 1945
........do...........
........do______
........do...........
........do______
........do...........

10
43

28
43

65
42
41
90

80
38
28
75
50
70
42
45
27

42
37

100
100
61
45
46

* Also includes data for men’s and boys’ dress shirts and night wear, over
alls, industrial garments, work pants, and work shirts; and women’s and
misses’ dresses and suits and coats.
3 Also includes data for drugs and medicines, paints and varnishes, and
perfumes and cosmetics.
3 Also includes data for sheet metal establishments.
4 Also includes data for chewing and smoking tobacco, cigars, costume and
precious jewelry, footwear, set-up boxes, and wood furniture.

Pay-roll
period
studied

differential, whereas 6 to 10 cents was slightly
more frequent for third-shift workers (table 2).
About 2 out of 3 establishments paying differ
entials made payment in the form of a uniform
cents-per-hour addition to first-shift rates. Next
most common was a uniform percentage diflfer( 1)

2
T able 2.— Shift differential practices in selected manufacturing industry groupsy 1 9 4 5 -4 6
All manufacturing
industries studied1
Extent and type of shift differential

Third
and/or
other
shifts

Second
shift

Establishments operating extra shifts................................................................
Establishments paying shift differentials..........................................................

5,690
3,239

2,781
1,765

Amount of shift differential

306
217

Third
and/or
other
shifts

Second
shift

247
175

Third
and/or
other
shifts

2,773
2,086

Second
shift

Third
and/or
other
shifts

1,161
371

995
770

642
439

82
5
37
33
6
1

Percent of establishments paying differentials

Uniform cents addition to first shift hourly rate.............................................
Under 5 cents...................................................................................................
5 cents..............................................................................................................
Over 5 and under 10 cents.............................................................................
10 cents..............................................................................................................
Over 10 cents....................................................................................................
Uniform percent addition to first-shift hourly rate.........................................
_
Under 5 percent_ ______ __________________________________________
5 percent........ .............. ....................................................................................
Over 5 and under 10 percent................................. - .....................................
10 percent........................................................................................................ .
Over 10 percent_______ _____________ ________________________ ______

Second
shift

Textiles

M etal working

Chemicals

69
6
28
22
10
3

(2
)

22
7
2
12
1

81
22
40
13
5
1

79
6
22
27
22
2

55
6
3
4
5
1

52
2
27
12
10
1

79
33
41
3
1
1

64
15
37
5
5
2

28
(2
)
U 8
2
17
1

16
1
11
1
3

3
2
11

1
1
3

100

(2
)

* 4
2
11
2

4
(2
)

2
2
3

Frill day's pay fnr redlined hours
.... . _ _
_
Paid lunch period not provided for first shift___________________________
Other *.......................................................................................................................

2
3
9

2
2
8

3
10

3
11

2
4
11

Total...............................................................................................................

100

6
4
19
3

13
(2
)

(2
)

3
2
7
1
1

1 Includes industry groups not shown separately (industries studied are listed in table 1). The total of all establishments studied (including those operat
ing one shift), was 15,636, of which 999 were in chemicals, 6,647 in metal-working industries, and 1,448 in textiles.
2 Less than one-half of 1 percent.
* Includes establishments paying two or more types of differentials listed above.

ential, found in 1 out of 5 establishments; these
differentials were generally larger, when trans
lated into cents, than the uniform cents-per-hour
premiums. A full day’s pay for reduced hours of
work and paid lunch periods, not provided for
first-shift workers, were each provided by 2 or 3
percent of the plants paying shift differentials.
The remaining tenth paid a combination of the
types of differentials described. Uniform centsper-hour additions were especially common in the
textile and chemical industries.
Although late-shift work was virtually nonexist
ent in the apparel industries, 40 percent of the
textile employees worked on second or third shifts
(table 3). Individual industries in which extra
shift operations were most common included in
dustrial chemicals, copper alloying, rolling, and
drawing, and paper, pulp, and paperboard manu
facture, all characterized by continuous processes.
Late-shift work was also widespread in cotton,
rayon, and woolen textiles, and full-fashioned
hosiery manufacture.
There was less variation among industries and
industry groups in the payment of shift differen
tials than in the extent of extra-shift operations.
Premium pay for late shifts was more frequent in
metalworking establishments, and less frequent
for second-shift operations in the textile industries

T able 3.— Percentage o f distribution o f establishments and
plant em ploym ent in selected manufacturing industry
groups , by shift , 1 9 4 5 -4 6 .
Percent of—
Industry group and shift

All manufacturing industries studied: i
First, shift.
....
___
Second sh ift_______ ___________________
Third and/or other shift__________________
Apparel:
First shift
____
_
. _ _
Second shift______________________________
Third and/or other shift__________________
Chemicals:
First shift____________ ____ _______________
Second shift______ ________ ______________
Third and/nr nthp.r shift
Metalworking:
First, shiftSecond shift______________________________
Third fvnd/or other shift
Textiles:
First shift
_____
_ _
Second shift______________________________
Third and/or other shift______ _____ _____

Plant em
Establish
ments operat ployment
on specified
ing speci
shifts
fied shifts

76
18
6

100
36
18
100
6
1

99
1
)
(2

100
31
25

81
11
8

100
42
15

74
20
6

100
80
44

60
29
11

1 includes data for other manufacturing industries in addition to industry
groups shown separately. (For a list of industries studied, see table 1.)
2 Less than H of 1 percent.

(particularly in cotton mills), than in other manu
facturing. Only 1 out of 3 textile plants paid a
differential for second-shift work, whereas 2 out
of 3 provided a premium for their third-shift em
ployees. Although there were individual indus
tries in other industry groups in which shift
operations were more common, the textile indus-

3
tries as a whole had the highest percentage of
establishments with second- and third-shift opera
tions and the lowest percentage of plants paying
shift differentials. Premium rates were paid by
less than 1 in 3 bakeries and structural-clayproducts establishments operating extra shifts.
Almost every copper alloying, rolling, and drawing
plant provided premium rates for late-shift work.
Considering individual industry groups as well
as all manufacturing industries studied, shift
differentials tended to be less common in the
Southeast and Southwest and to be most frequent
in the Pacific States.5 Differentials were some
what smaller in the Southeast and Border States.
Plants in these two regions most commonly added
4 cents or less to the first-shift rate, but in other
regions 5 cents an hour was most often paid secondshift workers.

E xten t o f N on p rod u ction
B on u ses, 1945-46®
N o n p r o d u c t i o n b o n u s e s were paid by two-fifths
of the manufacturing and about half of the non
manufacturing establishments surveyed during
1945 and 1946, in connection with extensive wage
studies by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Christ
mas bonuses were by far the most common type
and were paid in over four-fifths of both the man
ufacturing and nonmanufacturing establishments
that provided bonuses. Profit-sharing bonuses
ranked second. The importance of bonuses is
chiefly that the payments are usually made lump
sum and at Christmas— a time of special expendi
tures. On an annual basis, there were few in
stances in which bonuses raised hourly pay by
as much as 1 cent for plant workers and 2 cents
for office workers. Such payments appear to be
associated with particular industries rather than
with geographic location.
8 The regions used in this study include the following: New England—
Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and
Vermont; Middle Atlantic—New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania;
Border States—Delaware, District of Columbia, Kentucky, Maryland,
Virginia, and West Virginia; Southeast—Alabama, Florida, Georgia, M is
sissippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee; Great Lakes—
Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, and Wisconsin; Middle West—
Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, and South Dakota;
Southwest—Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Texas; Mountain—Arizona,
Colorado, Idaho, Montana, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming; Pacific—
California, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington.
• Prepared by Louis Badenhoop of the Bureau’s Wage Analysis Branch.

791901— 48---- 2

In general, the data obtained by the Bureau 7
provide information on the extent of nonproduc
tion bonus payments in various industries, and
their relative importance in the general wage
picture, rather than detail on variations in indi
vidual firm practice.
For the most part, the payments seem to be
intended to boost morale, to improve attendance
at the plant, store, or office, to stimulate workers
to save power and materials, and to grant workers
a share in the profits of the firm. Insofar as
such payments heighten the interest of workers
in their jobs, output per worker may be stimu
lated. Directly, however, nonproduction bonuses
are not related to the output of individuals or
groups of workers. The payment of such bonuses
should not be confused with the use of incentive
methods of pay. M oreover, they are not paid
frequently enough nor are they sufficiently regular
in amount to be associated with hourly rates of
pay; in this respect they may be contrasted with
cost-of-living bonuses. Moreover, the decision
as to whether such bonuses will be paid and how
large they will be are generally subject to the
discretion of management alone.

Extent of Practice
Plant workers received some form of nonproduc
tion bonuses in two-fifths of the manufacturing
establishments studied. Of the industry groups
presented in the accompanying table, the chemical
and metalworking industries appeared to lead,
with half of the establishments reporting such
payments; the apparel industries had relatively
few (1 in 4) establishments in which nonproduction
bonuses were paid. In the textile industry, about
two-fifths of the plants reported such bonuses.
Office workers in manufacturing industries ap
peared to receive bonus payments more frequently
than plant workers.
7 Data on nonproduction bonuses were obtained for plant workers in some
22,000 establishments, including nearly 16,000 manufacturing and over 6,000
nonmanufacturing establishments and for office workers in about 17,000
establishments. In scope, these data relate to a fairly large cross section of
American industry as a whole and to a wide variety of individual industries.
In presenting the information in terms of number of establishments, no at
tempt has been made to compensate for differences among industries in the
proportion of establishments studied or for differences in coverage between
segments of the same industry. As the individual industry surveys were
made primarily to obtain wage-rate information, a larger proportion of large
establishments and establishments in large cities and in certain regions
were included in order to permit presentation of separate wage data by
region, city, and size of establishment. A list of industries studied and in
formation relative to nonproduction bonuses in specific industries will be
available on request.

4
T

able

4 .— Percentage distribution o f establishments paying nonproduction bonuses to plant and office workers in selected

manufacturing and nonmanufacturing industries, by type o f bonus , 1 9 4 5 -4 6
Manufacturing

Nonmanufacturing

Allm an
Chemi M etal
ufactur
Apparel
working Textiles
ing
cals
studied1

Type of nonproduction bonus

Auto
mobile
repair
shops

Cloth
ing
stores

Limited
Depart Electric
price
light
ment
variety
and
stores
power
stores

Power
laun
dries

27
3
21

Ware
housing

PLAN W
T ORKERS
Establishments having bonuses............... —
Attendance bonus....................................
Christmas bonus....... ..............................

40
1
33
2
4
60

Profit-sharing bonus _

Other *........................................................
Establishments having no bonus.................
Information not available.............................

(2
)

24
1
20

• 3
76
(2
)

50
2
37
4
7
49
1

(2)

48
1
39
3
5
52.

37
2
30
1
4
63

26
2
2
70

(2
)

30
(2
)

55
2
9
33
1

63
(2
)

48
4
11
36
1

25
1
22
2
75

(2
)
(2
)

74
8
18

(2
)

3
73

37
(2
)
(2
)

34
3
63

(2
)

Total.......................................................

100

Number of establishments studied.............

15,636

2,261

999

6,647

1,448

1,399

759

355

130

1,441

1,621

724

35
1
29
1
4
64

49
1
38
4
6
49

52
(*)
^43
3
6
47

42
1
34
1
6
57

26
1
23

29
1
25

O
FFIC W
E ORKERS
Establishments having bonuses...................

Attendance honns_
_
Christmas bonus.
Profit-sharing bonus. _
Other 3
Establishments having no bonus

..... _
._ _
T_
_r _

V 38
2

(4
)
(2
)

M
1

(2
)

9
35

47
4
11
37

Information not available..............................

54
1

Total........................................................

100

Number of establishments studied.............

13,080

1,470

946

6,002

1,251

597

341

1Includes other manufacturing industries not shown separately.
* Less than one-half of 1 percents

About half of the nomnanufacturmg establish
ments studied also reported the payment of non
production bonuses. Upwards of two-thirds of
the retail-trade establishments (limited-price vari*
ety stores, clothing stores, and department stores)
reported this practice. Relatively fewer estab
lishments in other industries— such as public
utilities and selected service industries—reported
nonproduction bonuses; the proportion of plants
ranged from one-fourth for the electric light and
power industry to nearly two-fifths for warehouses.
The payment of nonproduction bonuses appears
to be associated with particular industries rather
than with the geographic location of establish
ments. A regional distribution of establishments
paying bonuses indicates that particular industries
maintained their rank in most regions; that is,
industries that ranked high in the payment of such
bonuses in the country as a whole generally
ranked high in each region.

Form of Bonus
Numerous forms of nonproduction bonuses were
reported; but many kinds did not occur frequently
enough to warrant separate study. In some
establishments more than one type of bonus was

2
74

(2
)

J8
13

42
(2
)

(2
)

J3
70

(2)

38
1
3
58

100

125

1,075

1,220

674

* Includes establishments providing more than one type of bonus listed
above.
4 Office workers were not covered in the study of automobile repair shops.

paid. Christmas bonuses were by far the most
common type; they were provided in over fourfifths of both manufacturing and nonmanufactur
ing establishments paying bonuses. Profit-shar
ing bonuses, ranking second, were paid mainly in
the chemical, metalworking, and departmentstore fields, and in about the same proportions
(4, 3, and 4 percent, respectively). Attendance
bonuses were of some importance in laundries.

Size of Bonus Payments
Nonproduction bonuses are of considerable im
portance to those workers who receive them,
particularly since they are generally paid in lump
sums at Christmas, a time of special expenditures.
However, one of the chief interests, in the present
study centered on how much such payments
raised the hourly earnings of workers in particular
industries. When averaged over all workers in
each of the various industries on an annual basis,
there were few instances in which such bonuses
increased hourly pay by as much as 1 cent for
plant workers and 2 cents for office workers.
Nevertheless, some establishments in nearly all
industries made average payments of at least 10
cents an hour or about $200 annually per employee.

5
Generally, however, all workers in a plant did not
share equally in these payments. In some estab
lishments bonuses were limited to specific cate
gories of workers such as working foremen, but
in most cases they applied to all workers. In the
latter situations, bonuses to individuals usually
varied with length of service, total amount earned
annually, number of weeks worked in the year, or
other factors. Usually, profit-sharing bonuses,
although much less frequently found than Christ
mas bonuses, yielded the highest amounts per
worker.

In cen tive P ay
in A m erica n In d u stry
1945-46

Jo seph M . Sh e r m a n 8

Incentive systems were least common in indus
tries such as industrial chemicals and tool and die
jobbing shops. In the former, the speed of pro
duction is set to a large degree by the requirements
of the manufacturing process and cannot be con
trolled by the worker, and in the latter, output is
on a unit rather than a mass production basis and
a high degree of precision is emphasized.
Information for the present summary was ob
tained by the Bureau of Labor Statistics in a
comprehensive series of industry wage studies
during 1945 and 1946. Altogether, 56 manufac
turing industries, including 34,000 establishments
with about 5K million workers, and 8 nonmanu
facturing industries, including 21,000 establish
ments with about 1% million employees, were
surveyed.9 Together they are believed to pro
vide a fairly representative sample of wagepayment practices in manufacturing as a whole,
although the studies, which were made primarily
to provide data on wages in individual industries,
do not include such important industries as basic
iron and steel, printing, rubber, and lumber.1
0
Because of the limited number of industries
studied, no generalizations are drawn for non
manufacturing as a whole.

Prevalence of Incentive Methods

30 p e r c e n t of the plant workers in man
ufacturing industries studied by the Bureau of
Labor Statistics in 1945 and 1946 were paid on an
incentive basis. Comparison with previous stud
ies indicates that there has been little change in
the extent of incentive payment in recent years.
Among the major industry groups studied in 1945
and 1946, incentive methods were most wide
spread in the manufacture of apparel. In this
industry a relatively high proportion of time is
spent in handling as contrasted with machine
operation. Consequently, control over output is
exercised predominantly by the worker rather than
the machine. This factor, together with the
comparatively small danger of spoilage in most
operations, makes the use of incentive payments
highly advantageous.
A bout

» Formerly of the Bureau’s Wage Analysis Branch.

Two-thirds of the workers in the apparel group
were paid on an incentive basis and 85 percent of
the apparel establishments were predominantly
incentive (table 5).1 Incentive workers were
1
* Data were obtained in the Bureau's studies for about 46 percent of the
plants, employing 58 percent of the workers, in these manufacturing indus
tries and from about one-third of the establishments, with two-fifths of the
workers, in the nonmanufacturing industries surveyed.
1 It should be borne in mind that the proportion of establishments studied
0
varied among segments**)! thejsame industry and among industries. Larg er
proportions of large establishments and of establishments in large cities and
in certain regions were included in order to permit presentation of separate
wage data by region, city, and size of establishment. The effect of this vary
ing coverage on the proportion of incentive workers was offset by weighting
so that each industry and each industry segment was given only its appro
priate influence on the data; however, the proportion of establishments that
are predominantly on an incentive basis has not been adjusted to compensate
for differences in coverage.
1 The proportion of the labor force paid on an incentive basis was lower
1
than the proportion of apparel establishments with incentive systems,
since some workers, such as cutters and those in maintenance jobs, were
paid on a time basis. However, because incentive pay is more common among
larger establishments, the proportion of workers on incentive pay exceeds
the proportion of establishments with incentive systems. Establishments
paying at least a fourth of their plant workers under a piece-rate or bonus
system were considered as predominantly incentive, but, in determining
the proportion of workers paid on an incentive basis, workers in all establish
ments were included regardless of their predominant method of wage pay
ment.

6
numerically important in all apparel industries,
varying from over two-fifths of the plant labor
force in the manufacture of women's suits and
coats and of knit underwear to four-fifths in work
shirt manufacture (table 6).
The textile group, with nearly two-fifths of its
workers on incentive systems, ranked next to
apparel in the extent of incentive pay. Fullfashioned and seamless hosiery plants used such
methods more extensively than any other textile
industry studied. About 1 in 3 workers in the
cotton, wool, and rayon textile industries were on
incentive. In contrast, textile dyeing and finish
ing, with its small plants and with processes more
closely allied to the chemical industries than to
textile manufacture, paid only about a fifth of its
workers under incentive systems.
About a fourth of the labor force in the metal
working industries, considered as a group, was
paid on an incentive basis. Among these indus
tries, copper alloying, rolling, and drawing ranked
highest in prevalence of incentive methods, paying
two-thirds of its workers in this manner. A t the
other extreme, tool and die jobbing shops paid all
but 2 percent of their workers on a time basis.
In the chemical industries, where speed of
production is typically set by the requirements of
the process rather than by the worker, time work
was comparatively more important than in the
other major industry groups shown in table 1.
Only 3 percent of the plant workers in industrial
chemical production were paid on an incentive

basis. Soap and glycerin manufacture had the
highest proportion of incentive workers (18 per
cent) in this industry group.
The extent of incentive payment varied widely
among the remaining manufacturing industries
studied. Whereas about three-fourths of the
workers in the manufacture of cigars were paid
in this manner, all but 6 percent of the labor force
of the cigarette industry, with its widespread use
of automatic machinery, were time workers.
Similarly, a third of the workers making cor
rugated and fiber boxes were on incentive, while
the machine-paced pulp and paper industry
reported less than a tenth of its workers on in
centive work.
In New England chemical, textile, and apparel
plants, incentive plans were somewhat less com
mon than in most other regions. Among metal
working and other manufacturing industries,
incentive payments were most common in the
New England, Middle Atlantic, and Great Lakes
States and least common in the Southwest,
Mountain, and Pacific regions.1
2
i2 The regions used in this study include the following: New England—
Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and
Vermont; Middle Atlantic—New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania;
Border States—Delaware, District of Columbia, Kentucky, Maryland,
Virginia, and W est Virginia; Southeast—Alabama, Florida, Georgia, M is
sissippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee; Great Lakes—
Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, and Wisconsin; Middle West—
Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, and South Dakota;
Southwest—Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Texas; Mountain—Arizona,
Colorado, Idaho, Montana, New Mexico, Utah, and W yoming; Pacific—
California, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington.

T able 5.— Extent and typ e o f incentive plans fo r plant workers in selected manufacturing and nonmanufacturing industry
groups , 1 9 4 5 -4 6
N onmanufacturing

Manufacturing
Item

Total
plants
stud
ied i

Appa
rel

Chemi
cals

M etal
work
ing

Tex
tiles

Auto Bitumi Cloth
mobile nous coal
ing
repair
(under
stores
shops ground)

Lim it
Depart ed price
ment
variety
stores
stores

Percent of all employees studied paid on an incen
tive basis.........................................................................

Percent of establishments—
W ith incentive systems for plant workers..........
Predominantly piece rate.................................
Individual....................................................
Group............................................................
Predominantly bonus.......................................
Individual—............. ...................................
Group...........................................................
W ith no incentive system.......................................

34
29
28
1
5
3
2
66

85
82
81
1
3
2
l
15

6
2
2

17
11
10
1
6
4
2
83

70
67
66
1
3
2
1
30

58
51
51

61
60
58
2
1
1

72
15
15

64
9
9

W 57
56
1
28
(2
)

55
55

Information not available.

4
2
2
94

7
7
(i)
2

Power
laun
dries

14
10
8
2
4
3
1
86

8
6
6
0

All establishments studied..................................

100

Number of establishments studied...............................

15,636

2,261

999

6,647

1,448

1,399

492

759

355

1,441

1,621

1 Includes other manufacturing industries not shown separately.
« Less than 0.5 of 1 percent.

7
Among nonmanufacturing industries, about
one-third of the employees of clothing stores and
department stores and nearly two-fifths of those
in automobile repair shops were on incentive.
About one-fifth of the underground bituminous
coal miners were paid incentive rates, but none
of the surface soft coal mines studied provided
incentive pay. Few incentive workers were
reported in the electric light and power and
warehousing industries.
Regional variations in methods of wage pay
ment were minor in automobile repair shops and
clothing and department stores, compared with
those in power laundries. In the latter industry,
incentive methods of pay were most common in
the Middle Atlantic and Border States. In
variety stores incentive pay was important only
in New England.
Incentive systems, especially individual piecerate plans, rarely apply to all workers in an estab
lishment. They cover workers engaged in direct
production; maintenance, custodial, supervisory,
and other workers whose output cannot readily be
measured are usually paid on a time basis. Excep
tions to this rule are found largely in establish
ments with group or other bonus systems, in which
a certain proportion of the incentive pay of direct
production workers is set aside for the indirect
workers. Among production workers, those whose
work must conform to exact specifications or whose
output is not standardized are generally paid on a
time basis, as are those whose work is machinepaced. In contrast, workers who control their
own output and whose production can be measured
and identified are frequently paid on an incentive
basis, unless emphasis on speed can result in costly
material losses. In retail trade, incentive systems
are limited largely to clerks.

Nature of Incentive Plans
Among the manufacturing industries piece-rate
plans, nearly all based on individual output, pre
dominated. Such plans were reported by fivesixths of the plants with incentive systems. In
the apparel and textile industries, 19 out of 20
incentive plans provided for individual piece rates.

T able 6.— Extent o f incentive plans fo r plant workers in
selected manufacturing industries , 1 9 4 5 -4 6
Percentage of—

Industry

All manufacturing industries studied............

Num
ber of Plants
with
plants
studied incen
tive
sys
tems

Work
ers on
incen
tive
pay

15,636

253
161
220
132
976
305
155
59

64
94
88
86
92
67
89
88

67
44
74
70
69
44
67
80

258
255
291
121
74

7
4
4
6
18

11
3
6
9
18

201
115
37
267
252
324
646
350
168
156
181
2,034

23
15
59
28
9
4
28
20
57
13
21
14

20
16
66

68
271

41
5

25
6

277
385
72
164
10
623

18
5
40
52
10
3

24
10
36
39
3
2

346
187
206
237
193
279

75
98
95
65
19
65

35
73
68
35
22
34

Bakeries.......................................................................... 1,320
Chewing and smoking tobacco...................................
31
Cigarettes.......................................................................
18
Cigars..............................................................................
198
Corrugated and fiber boxes.........................................
171
Fiber cans and tubes....................................................
52
Folding paper boxes.....................................................
188
Footwear (except house slippers and rubber foot
wear)...........................................................................
347
Jewelry, costume..........................................................
94
Jewelry, precious..........................................................
123
Paperboard.....................................................................
111
Pulp and paper.............................................................
208
Set-up boxes...................................................................
286
Structural clay products.............................................
331
Wood furniture, other than upholstered..................
514
Wood furniture, upholstered...................................... 2
1
289

1
39
28
98
43
27
16

Apparel
Knit outerwear...................................................
Knit underwear..................................................
M en’s and boys’ dress shirts and nightwear.
Overalls and industrial garments...................
Women's and misses’ dresses..........................
Women’s and misses’ suits and coats............
Work pants, cotton............................................
Work shirts.........................................................

Chemicals
Drugs and medicines...................................................
Industrial chemicals....................................................
Paints and varnishes....................................................
Perfumes and cosmetics..............................................
Soap and glycerin.........................................................

Metalworking i
Aircraft engines and engine parts..............................
Communication equipment.......................................
Copper alloying, rolling, and drawing......................
Electric generating and distribution equipment__
Electroplating, plating, and polishing......................
Fabricated structural steel..........................................
Foundries, ferrous.........................................................
Foundries, nonferrous..................................................
Iron and steel forgings.................................................
Machine tool accessories.............................................
Machine tools................................................................
Machinery......................................................................
Oil burners, hot-water and steam-heating appara
tu s...............................................................................
Power boilers and associated products.....................
Radios, radio equipment (except tubes), and
phonographs..............................................................
Sheet metal...................................................................
Small arm s....................................................................
Stoves and ranges.........................................................
Tanks..............................................................................
Tool and die jobbing shops.........................................

(2)
7
7
29
20
34
19
29
23

Textiles

Cotton textiles..............................................................
Hosiery, full-fashioned.................................................
Hosiery, seamless..........................................................
Rayon and silk textiles................................................
Textile dyeing and finishing.......................................
W oolen and worsted textiles____________ ____ ___

Other manufacturing industries

1 Includes data for automobiles.
2 Information not presented because of sample limitations.
2 Less than 0.5 of 1 percent.

89
17
8
12
6
24
34
25
43

(3
)

21
6
73
33
23
21
69
22
14
9
9
19
26
19
33

8
In contrast, nearly half of the comparatively small
number of incentive plans in the chemical industry
group provided group bonus payments for above
standard production since frequently the output
of individual workers cannot be readily identified
or measured.
In retail trade, incentive plans were mainly of
the individual bonus type, with commissions paid
in addition to salary, although some retail clerks
are paid on a straight commission basis. PM ’s
(“ push money” ) paid during special sales, or other
commissions for selling slow-moving items, may
constitute additional payment. Individual piecerate plans were the predominant type of incentive
reported in power laundries, underground soft coal
mines, and automobile repair shops. In the latter
establishments, workers typically receive a certain
percentage of the labor charge on the repair work
that they perform.

Earnings Vary With Method of Wage Payment
Generally, incentive workers receive higher
earnings than do time workers in comparable jobs,
although the size of differential is not consistent
from industry to industry. The earnings advan
tage of incentive workers ranged from less than
5 percent to at least 40 percent in the individual
manufacturing industries studied in 1945-46; in
many of the industries the difference was between
15 and 25 percent.
Among the four major manufacturing industry
groups presented in table 1, the largest differential
appeared in the apparel industries where incentive
workers earned from a fifth to two-fifths more than
time workers. In the metalworking industries,
incentive workers most commonly received from
a fourth to a fifth more than time workers, whereas
in the textile industries the differentials were
typically between a sixth and a tenth. The
chemical industries, in which incentive pay is
relatively unimportant, showed no consistent
pattern of differences between time and incentive
earnings, although in several of these industries
the difference was small. Among the nonmanu
facturing industries in which incentive pay was
most important— automobile repair shops and
clothing and department stores— the differential
amounted to about a third.

M anufacturing Industries:
W age Rate Structure, 1945-461
3
o r m a l r a t e s t r u c t u r e s were reported by about
3 out of 4 manufacturing establishments in 194546. These provide a written or otherwise generally
recognized scale of rates for the most important
occupational classifications in the plant. Among
the establishments with formal rate structures, a
single rate was somewhat more common (in 3 out
of 5 plants) than a range of rates for experienced
workers in an occupation, with increases in earnings
based on seniority and merit.
One plant out of four reported individual deter
mination of rates, with relatively less attention
paid to occupational classification in wage deter
mination. In such plants the workers’ rates of
pay are frequently set by the owner, manager, or
foreman on an individual basis, and wage increases
are granted in the same way. Workers may not
know why their pay is set at a certain level nor
what rate is paid to other employees performing
similar tasks; nor do they know in advance what
their earnings will be if they are transferred to
other work.
This information on rate structure was obtained
in wage studies made by the Bureau of Labor
Statistics in 56 manufacturing industries; together,
these industries employed almost half of all manu
facturing workers in the country and were repre
sentative of all broad manufacturing industry
groups except rubber, petroleum, lumber, printing,
shipbuilding, and basic iron and steel.1 Despite
4
the exclusions, it is believed that the industrial
coverage was sufficiently diversified to comprise a
relatively good cross section of manufacturing as
a whole.1
5

1 Prepared by Lily M ary David of the Bureau's Wage Analysis Branch.
3
1 Although field studies were not made in these industries, formal rate
4
structures are known to be widespread in them.
1 Coverage of manufacturing was incomplete because the data were obtained
5
from studies intended primarily to provide information on individual
industries rather than a picture of manufacturing as a whole. The industries
studied are listed in the table.
The individual surveys covered a representative group of plants rather
than all firms in each industry; altogether 15,636, or over two-fifths of aU
establishments in these industries, were studied. As these studies were made
primarily to obtain wage rate information, a greater proportion of large
establishments and of establishments in large cities and in certain regions
were included in order to permit presentation of data by region. Moreover,
the proportion of establishments studied varied from industry to industry.
N o attempt has been made in the table to compensate for differences in cover
age among industries or between segments of the same industry. In most
industries, establishments with less than 8 workers were not studied.

9
A large majority of the establishments in the 4
manufacturing industry groups for which separate
data are presented in the accompanying table re
ported a formal rate structure. Such methods of
wage determination were, however, more typical
of the textile and apparel industries than of chem
icals and metalworking. Nine out of 10 textile
establishments and over 8 out of 10 apparel estab
lishments reported a formal rate structure, com
pared with 7 out of 10 chemical and metalwork
ing establishments. Among the industries studied
outside the groups just discussed, individual rate
structures were most widespread in the manu
facture of jewelry and were least common in the
footwear, the pulp, paper, and paperboard, and
the tobacco industries. Single rate scales tended
to be more common, compared with rate ranges,
in industries in which formal rate structures were
most widespread. The textile and apparel groups
were characterized by a very high proportion of
establishments having a single rate rather than a

range of rates; in contrast, most of the metal
working establishments with formal rate struc
tures provided a range of rates for a job, and in
the chemical industries rate ranges were almost
as numerous as single rate scales. In textile and
apparel manufacture, plants with one rate for a
job were 7 or 8 times as numerous as those with
a range of rates.
On the whole there was a good deal of uniformity
in rate structure among industries within an in
dustry group, although there was a greater vari
ation within the chemical and metalworking
groups than in apparel or textile manufacture.
Thus, while four-fifths of the establishments in
the industrial chemical and soap and glycerin
industries had formal rate structures, from a third
to more than two-fifths of the plants engaged in
manufacturing drugs and medicines, paints and
varnishes, and perfumes and cosmetics reported
individual determination of rates. Similarly, in
the metalworking group, at least a third of the

T able 7.— Distribution o f establishments by rate strueturef in selected manufacturing industries , 1 9 4 5 -4 6
Percent of establishments
with—

Percent of establishments
with—

Industry

Num
ber of
estab
lish
ments
studied

Indi Formal rate structure
vidual
deter
mina
Single Range
All
of
tion
rate
rates

A ll manufacturing industries stud
ied i........................................................

15,636

Apparel.....................................................

2,261

Knit outerwear........................................
Knit underwear.......................................
M en’s and boys’ dress shirts'■ and
nightwear..............................................
Overalls and industrial garments........
Women’s and misses’ dresses................
Women’s and misses' suits and coats.
Work pants, cotton.................................
Work shirts..............................................

253
161

30
4

70
96

60
92

10
4

220
132
976
305
155
59

19
17
13
8
8
15

81
83
87
92
92
85

73
65
78
76
75
54

8
18
9
16
17
31

Chemicals.................................................
Drugs and medicines..............................
Industrial chemicals...............................
Paints and varnishes..............................
Perfumes and cosmetics.........................
Soap and glycerin....................................

999
258
255
291
121
74

28
35
11
33
44
20

72
65
89
67
56
80

39
33
56
31
21
53

33
32
33
36
35
27

Metalworking1......................... ..............

6,647

201
37

28
20
5

Aircraft engines and engine parts........
Copper alloying, rolling, ana drawing.
Electric generating and distribution
equipment.............................................
Electroplating, plating, and polishing.
Fabricated structural steel....................
Foundries, ferrous...................................
Foundries, nonferrous............................
Iron and steel forgings...........................
Machine tool accessories........................
Machine tools..........................................
Machinery................................................
Oil burners, hot-water and steam
heating apparatus................................

80
95

11
52

53
69
43

267
252
324
646
350
168
156
181
2,034

20
38
27
27
25
21
34
21
32

80
62
73
73
75
79
66
79
68

9
19
28
36
27
25
6
8
12

71
43
45
37
48
54
60
71
56

Includes data for automobiles and communications equipment.

Industry

Number of
estab
lish
ments
studied

Indi- Formal rate structure
vidual
deter
Range
mina
Single
All
of
tion
rate
rates

Metalworking—Continued.
Power boilers and associated products.
Radios, radio equipment (except
tubes), and phonographs...................
Sheet metal...............................................
Small arms................................................
Stoves and ranges....................................
Tanks........................................................
Tool and die jobbing shops...................

271

277
385
72
164
10
623

16
29
15
7
38

84
71
85
93
100
62

10
35
11
51
70
8

74
36
74
42
30
54

Textiles.....................................................

1,448

Cotton textiles.........................................
Hosiery, full-fashioned...........................
Hosiery, seamless....................................
Rayon and silk textiles..........................
Textile dyeing and finishin g...............
Woolen and worsted textiles...............

346
187
206
237
193
279

3
7
5
11
14
9

97
93
95
89
86
91

91
89
86
78
65
80

6
4
9
11
21
11

1,320
31
18
198
171
52
188

33
13
11
4
18
37
31

67
87
89
96
82
63
69

48
61
22
88
56
44
33

19
26
67
8
26
19
36

347
94
123
111
208
286
331

10
70
54
12
3
45
21

90
30
46
88
97
55
79

81
8
27
70
83
42
68

9
22
19
18
14
13
11

514
289

37
44

63
56

20
40

43
16

Other manufacturing industries
Bakeries....................................................
Chewing and smoking tobacco_______
Cigarettes.................................................
Cigars........................................................
Corrugated and fiber boxes...................
Fiber cans and tubes..............................
Folding paper boxes...............................
Footwear (except house slippers and
rubber footwear)..................................
Jewelry, costume.....................................
Jewelry, precious.....................................
Paperboard..............................................
Pulp and paper........................................
Set-up boxes.............................................
Structural clay products........................
Wood furniture, other than uphol
stered......................................................
Wood furniture, upholstered................

10
establishments in some industries, such as ma
chinery, machine tool accessories, and electro
plating and polishing, reported individual rate
determination; most metalworking industries,
however, had at least three out of four establish
ments with formal rate structures.
N o one industry characteristic appears to ex
plain the variation in rate structure among indus
tries. The extent to which formal rate structures
have been adopted seem to have been influenced
by a number of factors. Thus, there appears to
be some tendency for this type of rate structure
to be more common in industries characterized
by large establishments; however, there are nu
merous exceptions, among which are the apparel
industries. Industries in which incentive work is
widespread also tend to have formal rate structures
more often than those in which time work is most
common; piece rates are unlikely to vary among
workers performing the same task. Industries
characterized by a fairly definite and well estab
lished occupational structure are more likely to
have a formal rate structure than those in which
the division of labor varies widely from plant to
plant and has not been long established. The
type of rate structure seems to be less closely
related to the extent of unionization than some of
the other factors previously mentioned; formal rate
structures appear to be about as common in some
industries not highly unionized as in others with
extensive unionization. Although unions fre
quently obtain a formalization of the occupational
and wage structure of an establishment, there are
union plants in which a formal rate structure has
not been adopted.

E xten t o f In su ra n ce an d P en sion s
in In d u stria l E m p loy m en t1
6
plans financed wholly
or partly by employers have been widely adopted.
According to wage surveys made by the Bureau
of Labor Statistics in 1945 and 1946, nearly half of
I nsu ran ce

and

p e n s io n

i® Prepared by Hilda W . Callaway of the Bureau’s Wage Analysis Branch.
Information on these plans for specific industries will be presented in a forth
coming report “ Insurance and Pension Plans, 1945-46.” Similar cross
industry reports on paid vacations, method of wage payment, nonproduction
bonuses, and shift differentials will also be made available.

the establishments in manufacturing maintained
some types of protection for their workers—
over and above the benefits prescribed by socialsecurity law. The proportion furnishing such
protection among seven nonmanufacturing in
dustry groups ranged from 14 to 86 percent.
The limitations of the survey information on
insurance and pension plans need to be carefully
stated. This article presents merely a brief sum
mary of the extent of insurance and pension plans
among the establishments studied in selected
industries 1 for the country as a whole and for
7
major geographic regions. The material was ob
tained to supplement the more basic data on
occupational wage rates; coverage in terms of
workers, specific benefits, and other provisions
of these plans are not available. However, in
view of the wide current interest in private in
dustry measures for workers, even this limited
information has value.
Over two-fifths of the 15,636 manufacturing
establishments surveyed by the Bureau during
1945 and 1946 had some type of insurance and/or
pension plan.1 Health and life insurance were by
8
far the most prevalent types.1 Pension plans
9
were comparatively uncommon, in part owing to
the benefits available under the Social Security
Act. In the textile, chemical, and metalworking
industry groups, about the same proportion of
employers extended insurance and/or pension
benefits to office and plant workers alike. By
contrast, in the apparel industries (exclusive of
men’s and boys’ suits and coats), the proportion
of establishments which had instituted plans for
office workers was considerably less than half as
great as for those having provisions for plant
employees. However, the office employees in
total apparel employment are relatively unim
portant, numerically.
The textile industry, with 60 percent of the mills
surveyed operating some type of insurance or pen
sion system, ranked highest among the four sepa-*
8
u Detailed information on the wage structures of approximately 50 im
portant industries have been made available in bulletin form. In each
industry, the establishments were carefully selected to give proportionate
representation to union and nonunion establishments, localities of various
sizes, and establishments of various sizes as measured by employment.
In practically all industries, the studies were limited to establishments with
8 or more employees.
i® Some establishments provide more than one type of plan and have been
included in the figures for each type of plan they provide. However, each
establishment has been counted only once in the total number of plants.
i® For a discussion of union health and welfare plans, see Monthly
Labor Review, February 1947 (p. 191).

11
with 86 percent of the electric light and power
systems had established insurance or pension
plans. In other industries, the proportion ranged
from 24 percent in warehousing and storage estab
lishments to 57 percent in department stores.
As in manufacturing, life and health insurance
predominated in every industry. Pension plans
were significant in the electric light and power
industry and in department and limited-price
variety stores.

rate manufacturing groups shown in the accom
panying table. In apparel and chemicals, 55 and
56 percent of the establishments, respectively,
had some type of program; the proportion in the
metalworking industries was 44 percent.
Considering the seven individual nonmanufac
turing industries2 for the country as a whole, only
0
14 percent of the power laundries as compared
Coverage of the nonmanufacturing industries except limited-price variety
stores was usually restricted to those in cities of 100,000 or more population.

T able 8.— Percentage distribution o f establishments having insurance or pension plansf fo r plant workers in selected manu
facturing and nonmanufacturing industries, by type o f plan and region, 1 9 4 5 -4 6
Nonmanufacturing

Manufacturing
Type of plan and region
Total
Chemi
studied1 Apparel
cals

M etal
working Textiles

Auto
mobile
repair
shops

Cloth
ing
stores

Depart
ment
stores

37
31
16
1
6
63

26
21
13
4
4
74

57
43
27
14
6
43

Electric Limited Power
light
price
laun
variety
and
dries
power
stores

Ware
housing

United States *
Total establishments with insurance or
pension plans3.............................................
Life insurance...........................................
Health insurance......................................
Retirement pension.................................
Other..........................................................
No insurance or pension plan.......................
Information not available.............................

47
37
30
5
12
53
(4
)

55
35
46
14
17
45
(4
)

(4
)

44
36
26
4
9
56

56
47
29
13
11
44

60
47
41
2
24
40
(4
)

(4
)

86
78
37
35
12
13
1

36
29
9
13
1
64

14
11
6
(4
)

2
86

24
20
8
I
6
76

(4
)

Total.......................................................

100

Total number of establishments studied...

15,636

2,261

999

6,647

1,448

1,399

759

355

135

1,441

1,621

724

48
39
30
4
23
52

29
13
22
4
12
71

45
30
19
8
27
55

47
39
25
6
14
53

78
68
56
2
59
22

31
28
9

40
25
17
4
19
58
2

60
33
27
7
17
40

95
84
53
74
37
5

29
23
5
14
1
70
1

19
16
7

32
25
15

5
81

15
68

100

1,977

194

849

339

134

139

51
38
37
9
15
49

73
48
65
24
25
27

55
48
30
15
10
45

37
31
21
3
8
63

55
35
38
1
27
45

34
29
13

55
43
17
15
4
45

94
89
22
33
11
6

33
26
13
21
1
67

19
10
13

5
66

22
20
12
2
5
78

19
16
10
1
1
81

New England
Total establishments with insurance or
pension plans8.............................................
Life insurance...........................................
Health insurance......................................
__
■Retirement pension _____
Other..........................................................
No insurance or pension plan.......................

Information not available _____________

Total.....................................................
Total number of establishments studied—

(4
)

16
69

<)
4

Middle Atlantic
Total establishments with insurance or
pension plans8.............................................
Life insurance...........................................
Health insurance......................................
Retirement pension.................................
Other..........................................................
N o insurance or pension plan.......................

Information not available

_______

(4
)

1
81

(4
)

Total.......................... ............. —..........

100

Total number of establishments studied—

4,782

1,265

316

1,610

478

231

169

234

286

177

43
37
26
2

37
31
25

62
60
26
17

37
31
21
3
1
63

53
46
35
2

43
39
18
2

20
19
6
3

71
59
35
24

100
70
40
40

43
41
10
15

13
10
7

7
7
1

26
3

Southeast
Total establishments with insurance or
pension plans8............................................
Life insurance...........................................
Health insurance......................................

Retirement pension
Other
No insnranee or pension plan
Information not available

(4)

1
63

(4
)

Total.......................................................

100

Total number of establishments studied—

1,401

152

298

477

171

298

215

See footnotes at end of table,

12
T able 8.— Percentage distribution o f establishments having insurance or pension plans y fo r plant workers in selected manur
facturing and nonmanufacturing industries , by type o f plan and region , 1 9 4 6 -4 6 — Continued
Manufacturing

Nonmanufacturing

Type of plan and region
Textiles

Auto
mobile
repair
shops

Cloth
ing
stores

Depart
ment
stores

51
41
33
5
8
48
1

67
48
45
7
12
33

40
33
14
1
6
60

30
21
19
7
2
69
1

55
40
38
19
5
45

Chemi
Total
Metal
working
studied1 Apparel cals
*

Electric Limited
light
price
and
variety
power
stores

Power
laun
dries

Ware
housing

Great Lakes
Total establishments with insurance or
pension plans *..............................................
Life insurance...........................................
Health insurance.....................................

48
39
31
5
9
51
1

Retirement pension.

Other......... ................................................
No insurance or pension plan.......................
Information not available________________

33
21
27
3
5
67

58
49
28
12
14
42

(<)

(4
)

32
22
11
14
3
68

80
80
43
30
10
20

1
86

26
23
8
2
4
74

14
13
3

(4
)

Total.......................................................

100

Total number of establishments studied—

4,080

242

250

2,511

345

209

113

294

304

163

50
40
23
2
19
50

46
33
14
1
22
54

56
46
22
2
5
44

55
45
27
4
25
45

43
38
18
1
6
57

47
44
28
3
14
53

59
37
26
7
22
41

86
80
47
40
13
7
7

43
32
2
16

15
14
2
3
85

28
27
9
2
6
72

Total.......................................................

100

Total number of establishments studied..

668

251

119

112

170

33
30
12
1
4
67

23
19

69
64
37
10

29
25
5

64
50
32

50
41
36

27
27
4

58
50
25

83
83
17
8

39
34
4
2

11
8
5

40
30
H

4
77

§i

8
71

18
36

88
1

Total........................................................

100

Total number of establishments studied..

633

248

166

168

34
24
22
3
2
66

28
7
21
2
1
72

53
38
39
14
5
47

35
27
22
2
2
65

50
38
25
6

29
21
22

18
12
11
3

44
35
18
12

57
57
29

32
25
6

9
9
5

29
20
19
5

2
71

4
68

Middle West
Total establishments with insurance or
pension plans *_________________________
Life insurance________________________

Health insurance

____

__ _

Retirement pension__________________
Other.........................................................

Nn insurance nr pension plan
Information not available. .

56
1

Southwest
Total establishments with insurance or
pension plans*..............................................
Life insurance-..........................................

Health insurance __

Retirement pension__________________
Other............................... ...........................
No insurance or pension plan.......................

Information not available___ _ ___

Pacific
Total establishments with insurance or
pension plans
...........................................
Life insurance...........................................
Health insurance— - ................................

Retirement pension___ .... ..... _ ...
Other.. ______ _.
. _
__

No insurance or pension plan.......................

Information not available.

- _ _

(*)

Total.......................................................

100

Total number of establishments studied..

1,238

(*)
100

100

18o”

io T

616”

181

140

i Includes other manufacturing not shown separately.
* Includes data for Border and Mountain regions in addition to those shown separately.
* Unduplicated total.
4 Less than 0.5 of 1 percent.

Regional Differences
Striking regional differences in the extent of
pensions and insurance existed among the indus
tries studied. The concentration of various indus
tries in certain regions has probably led to more
uniform and widespread practices in these indus
tries. Insurance and pension plans have been
more widely adopted in some low-wage than highwage manufacturing industries, as indicated pre
viously by their extent in textiles and metalwork

ing. Collective bargaining has also influenced
the adoption of these plans. Prior to W orld War
II, insurance or pension provisions were seldom
written into the union-employer agreements, but
currently a substantial number of the contracts
in apparel, textiles, machinery, paper and retail
trade contain specific provisions relating to these
benefits. Size of establishment and location in
terms of size of community appear to be important
factors. The fact that employer participation

13
represents a labor-cost item, particularly impor
tant in the case of marginal employers, helps to
account for part of the variation among industries.
Manufacturing: The largest number of establish
ments studied by the Bureau were located in the
M iddle Atlantic and Great Lakes States.2 The
1
former with 51 percent of the plants studied hav
ing insurance or pension systems for plant em
ployees ranked higher than any other region,
but only slightly higher than the Middle West,
New England and the Great Lakes. Among the
four industry groups shown in the table, the
M iddle Atlantic area had the highest proportion
o f insurance and pension plans only in apparel.
This industry is extensively unionized and, espe
cially the women’s apparel branch, is largely con
centrated in New York City. In fact, a m ajority
of the women’s apparel establishments in the
Middle Atlantic region operated under union
agreements which provided for a vacation-health
fund to which employers paid a fixed percent of
their pay roll and from which the union dis
tributed sickness benefits in accordance with an
established scale.
The Great Lakes region accounted for over a
third of the metalworking plants studied and about
half of these establishments had instituted some
type of insurance or pension. The proportion of
Middle West plants (relatively unimportant in
the total industry group) providing insurance or
pension benefits was slightly higher. In the
M iddle Atlantic States only 37 percent of the
1,610 metalworking plants had adopted such plans.
In textiles, New England, the Middle Atlantic,
and the Southeast (named in order of prevalence
of plans) are the major producing regions. Seven
ty-eight percent of the New England as compared
to 53 percent of the Southeastern mills had ini
tiated some sort of plan. In every region2 at least
2
half of the plants offered some benefits. Similarly,
2 The States included in these regions with one exception are as follows:
1
New England—Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire,
Rhode Island, and Vermont. Middle Atlantic—New Jersey, New York,
and Pennsylvania. Border—Delaware, District of Columbia, Kentucky,
Maryland, Virginia, and West Virginia. Southeast—Alabama, Florida,
Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee.
Southwest—Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Texas. Great Lakes—
Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, and Wisconsin. M iddle
W est—Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, and South
Dakota. Pacific—California, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington.
The exception: In all textile industries, except hosiery and knitwear, in
the apparel group, Virginia was included with the Southeast.
2 No plants were covered in M iddle W est or Mountain regions.
2

the development was widespread in the chemical
industries, but the relative positions of the regions
were changed, with New England ranking lowest
(45 percent) and the Southwest highest (69 per
cent).
In all of the manufacturing industries the
regional positions frequently changed, depending
upon the type of plan. For example, in apparel
the Middle Atlantic and in textiles the New
England region had the greatest proportion of
plants with both life and health insurance provi
sions. In the chemical industry group the Pacific
region showed the highest proportion of healthinsurance plans, while the Southwest led in lifeinsurance plans. In the metalworking industries
the Great Lakes outranked all other regions in
health plans and the Midwest in life insurance.
It is significant that the Pacific region, which
typically shows the highest straight-time average
hourly earnings by industry, ranks among the
lowest in extent of all types of plans even though
its industries are highly unionized. Partial expla
nation may be that the high wage rates themselves
attract and hold the necessary labor force without
extra forms of compensation. Furthermore, a
number of the industries were developed and
expanded at a comparatively more recent date
than those in the Eastern regions.
The Mountain and Southwest regions only had
a smaller proportion of plants providing benefits
than the Pacific region. In Border and South
eastern States, where lower wages generally pre
vail, the extent of benefits offered is considerably
greater than on the West Coast.
Nonmanufacturing: Because of the heterogeneity
in many respects of the nonmanufacturing in
dustries studied, no combination of industry
data has been attempted.
Health and insurance provisions were more
prevalent among electric light and power systems
than in any other industry surveyed in all regions.
All 10 Southeastern systems studied had instituted
programs for their plant employees and in all other
regions (except the Pacific Coast where only 4 of
7 reported provisions) the proportion was very
high. Few of the power laundries, which have a
relatively low wage level, provided any type of
benefit in any of the regions. Only 9 percent of
such establishments in the Pacific and Mountain

14
States had adopted some provision. In New
England and the Middle Atlantic, the highest
ranking regions for the industry, less than a fifth
o f the power laundries had established insurance
or pension provisions for their plant workers.
Insurance or pension provisions for plant work
ers in warehousing and storage establishments
ranged from 7 percent in the Southeast to 43 per
cent in Mountain States. Plans for automobile
repair shop workers were more prevalent in most
regions. In the Pacific and Mountain States, the
lowest ranking regions, insofar as prevalence of
plans was concerned, at least 29 percent of the
automobile repair shops were contributing to em
ployee insurance or pension benefits. The highest
proportion (50 percent) was in the Southwest
region.
Regional differences were rather large in the
extent of plans for retail-store workers among the
3 branches studied. M ost extensive plans were
offered to department store workers (exclusive of
office personnel) in the Southeast region— 71 com
pared to 43 percent of the limited-price variety
stores had some type of provision. Corresponding
figures for the two kinds of stores in the Pacific
region were 44 and 32 percent. The extent of
provisions in clothing establishments ranged from
15 percent in Mountain States to 47 percent in
the M iddle West.

Paid Vacations and Sick Leave
in Industry, 1 9 45 -462
3
3 o u t o f 4 m a n u f a c t u r in g
establish
ments, by 1945-46, had formal paid vacation plans
for plant workers after a year’s service, and almost
9 out of 10 provided paid vacations for office
workers with similar length of service. In con
trast, formal plans for paid sick leave were un
common both for plant and office workers. Typi
cally, plant workers received a 1-week vacation
with pay after a year’s employment; office workers
were allowed 2-week vacations in more than twofifths of the establishments with vacation plans.
Information available for the machinery industries
indicated that after 5 years’ service, 2-week vaca-

tions were most common for plant as well as for
office workers.2
4
In contrast, paid vacations in 1937 were pro
vided for plant workers by only 1 in 4 manufac
turing establishments. Even at that time, how
ever, about 8 out of 10 establishments granted
vacations with pay to office and other salaried
workers.2 Although extension of paid vacation
5
plans from office to plant workers began prior
to World War II, rapid progress was made during
the war years. Under wartime wage stabilization,
the National War Labor Board developed a vaca
tion policy under which virtually automatic ap
proval was given to the voluntary introduction of
paid vacations of specified duration.2
6
The interest in vacations as an objective of col
lective bargaining is reflected in the rapid increase
in the number of agreements providing vacations.
In 1940, only about 25 percent of all workers
under union agreement were entitled to paid vaca
tions, as compared with 85 percent in 1944.2
7

Method and Coverage
Data for 1945-46 were collected as part of the
Bureau’s general wage surveys of 56 manufac
turing and 7 nonmanufacturing industries.2 The
8
manufacturing industries together employed about
5% million workers, or more than a third of the
entire manufacturing labor force of the country,
and contained more than 34,000 establishments.
The nonmanufacturing industries included 19,000
establishments having 1,300,000 employees.2
9
Although it is believed that the coverage of man
ufacturing industries is sufficiently large and
representative to provide a rough picture of

A bout

3 Prepared by Edytb M . Bunn of the Bureau’s Wage Analysis Branch.
3

2 For further discussion of vacations in the machinery industries, see
4
Wages in the Machinery Industries, October 1946, M onthly Labor Review,
September 1947, p. 317.
2 M onthly Labor Review, August 1938, p. 269. The present study differs
3
in coverage from the earlier survey, but it is believed that rough comparisons
are warranted.
2 This automatic approval was limited to plans for 1 week of vacation after
3
1 year’s employment and 2 weeks after 6 years. Further details regarding
W ar Labor Board policies on vacation plans will be available in the forth
coming Termination Report of the National W ar Labor Board.
2 See Paid-Vacation Provisions in Union Agreements, November 1944,
7
Monthly Labor Review, February 1945, p. 299.
^
2 The manufacturing industries studied are listed in table 2; the nonmanu
3
facturing industries appear in table 1.
2 For the basis of this study, 15.500 manufacturing establishments employ
2
ing slightly above 3 million workers and 6,400 nonmanufacturing establish
ments having 600,000 employees were actually surveyed. Establishments
with less than 8 workers were omitted, except in a few industries where small
establishments accounted for a substantial proportion of the industry’s
employment.

15
for workers who had been employed longer than
a year.
Arrangements whereby workers were given
vacations or paid wages during illness at the
discretion of their employer or supervisor were
not studied; these informal arrangements are
particularly important with respect to sick leave.

vacation and sick-leave practices for manu
facturing as a whole, it should be borne in mind
that the individual studies were made primarily
to provide data for individual industries.3 Such
0
important segments of manufacturing as basic
iron and steel, lumber, printing, meat packing,
and the rubber industries were not studied.
Coverage of nonmanufacturing was limited to a
few industries, so that no generalizations could
be drawn for nonmanufacturing as a whole.
This article is intended to provide only a general
picture of the prevalence of formal vacation and
sick-leave plans and the amount of vacation
provided after 1 year's service. It does not
attempt to cover differing vacation provisions

Formal vacation plans tended to be most com
mon in industries characterized by large operating
units and high wage rates and, within the individ
ual industries, were most frequently provided in
large unionized establishments.

** N o attempt, moreover, has been made in the summary of paid vacations
and sick-leave practices, presented in terms of number of establishments,
to compensate for differences among industries in the proportion of establish
ments studied or for differences in coverage between segments of the same
industry. As the individual industry surveys were made primarily to
obtain wage-rate information, a larger proportion of large establishments and
establishments in large cities and in certain regions were included in order
to permit presentation of separate wage data by region, city, and size of
establishment.

Manufacturing Industries: Among the major man
ufacturing industry groups for which data are
available, the chemical industries provided vaca
tions most commonly after 1 year's service and
also tended to furnish the longest vacations
(table 9). Although the metalworking industry

Formal Paid Vacation Practices

T able 9.— Length o f paid vacations after 1 yearns service in selected manufacturing and nonmanufacturing industry groups

1945—
46
Manufacturing

Nonmanufacturing
Lim
ited
Power
price laun
variety dries
stores

All
indus
tries
stud
ied !

Ap*,
parel

Chem
icals

Metal
work
ing

Tex
tiles

Auto
mobile
repair
shops

Cloth
ing
stores

De
part
ment
stores

Elec
triclight
and
power

Establishments studied:
Number...........................................................................
Percent............................................................................

15,567
100

2,258
100

999
100

6,605
100

1,447
100

1,397
100

754
100

355
100

130
100

1,439
100

1,620
100

723
100

Percent of establishments with paid vacations after 1
year’s service---------------- --------------------------------than 1 week .,
1 week..............................................................................
Over 1 week hut under 2 weeks _
2 weeks............................................................................
Over 2 weeks___ *_______________________________

73
2
65
(*)
4

92
1
70
1
20

68
4
61

75
1
73

76
(>)
67

97
(2)
79
1
17

95
1
87
1
6

45
2
43

(3)
' 2

81
1
63
(2)
2
(2)
15

Establishments studied:
Number...........................................................................
Percent............................................................................

12,880
100

1,451
100

932
100

5,915
100

1,241
100

Percent of establishments with paid vacations after 1
year’s service.....................................................................
Less than 1 week________________________________
1 week................................................. ...........................
Over 1 week hut under 2 weeks
2 weeks............................................................................
Over 2 weeks _ _ __
__

87
1
47
1
38
(2
)

83
(2)
56
1
26
<>
*

95
(2)
38
1
56
(*)

86
1
42
1
42
(2
)

Percent of establishments with no paid vacations
after 1 year’s service....... ............................ ....................

Length of vacation

Ware
hous
ing

Plant workers

Other 3__

_ _

Percent of establishments with no paid vacations
after 1 year’s service.........................................................

(2
)

(3)

(2
)

W 9

(2
)

(1
2
)

67
(2
)
W26
1

(2
)

(2
)
(2
)

73
(2
)

' 6

588
100

341
100

125
100

1,063
100

1,206
100

668
100

98
1
88
1
8
(2
)

69
1
60

Office workers

1 Includes other manufacturing industries not shown separately (see table 10.)
2 Less than Moo of 1 percent.
* Establishments (in women's and misses' dresses and coats and suits) operating under union agreements which provide for a health-vacation fund into

(!)
(4)

(3)

100

(*)
0)
(!)

78
1
18
(2
)

(4)

64
(2
)
* 29
1

(!)

(3)
(3)

33
(2
)
12

46
2
41

°8
(2
)
31

wh ich employers pay a determined percent of their pay roll and from which
vacation payments are distributed. Also includes firms providing vacations to begin in 1947.
< No coverage.

16
T able 10.— Extent o f paid vacation plans fo r plant workers after 1 yea r's service in selected m anufacturing in d u stries, 1 9 4 5 -^ 6

Industry group

Pay-roll period
studied

15,567

July 1946.
July 1946.
Apr. 1945.

2,258
252
161
220

81
81
90
77

Apr. 1945.
Apr. 1945.
July 1946.
Apr. 1945.
Apr. 1945.

132
975
305
154
59

64
83
95
56
54

Jan. 1946.
July 1946.
July 1946.
July 1946.
July 1946.

999
255
258
291
121
74

92
92
93
94
91
85

6,605
199
46
37

68
77
78
97

265

252
323
642
346
167
156
181
2,013
115

52
63
68
68
77
75
82
69
78

All manufacturing industries studied------ Jan. 1945-July
1946
Apparel............................................................
Knit outerwear.......................................
Knit underwear............................ .........
M en's and boys' dress shirts and.
nightwear.
Overalls and industrial garments-----Women’s and misses’ dresses..............
Women’s and misses' suits and coats.
Work pants, cotton................................
Work shirts.............................................
Chemicals ............. ..............
Chemicals, industrial. . .
Drugs and medicines. . .
Paints and varnishes.. .
Perfumes and cosmetics.
Soap and glycerin ........
Metalworking . . .......................................
Aircraft engines......................................
Communication equipment.................
Copper alloying, rolling, and draw
ing.
Electric generating and distribution,
equipment.
Electroplating .....................................
Fabricated structural steel...................
Foundries, ferrous .............................
Foundries, nonfeirous...........................
Iron and steel forgings..........................
Machine-tool accessories.......................
Machine tools .....................................
Machinery (miscellaneous). ...............
Motor vehicles ........... ........................

Percent
of
estab
lish
Num ments
ber of having
estab
paid
lish
vaca
ments
tion
studied plans
after
1 year's
service

Jan. 1945............
Jan. 1945...........
Spring-summer
1946.
Jan. 1945............
Jan. 1945............
Jan. 1945...........
J an .1945...........
Jan .1945...........
Jan. 1945...........
Jan. 1945...........
Jan. 1945 ..........
Jan. 1945...........
Jan. 1945............

group granted vacations somewhat less frequently
than other industry groups, there was considerable
variation among the separate industries within this
group (table 10). The apparel trades,3 although
1
ranking relatively high in paid vacations for plant
workers, provided somewhat shorter vacations for
office employees than did the other industries
studied. Considering individual industries out
side these major industry groups, the cigar, set-up
box, structural-clay product, and furniture indus
tries fell below the all-manufacturing average for
formal vacation arrangements (table 10).3
2
« Union agreements in the women's coat and suit and dress industries,
particularly in the New England and Middle Atlantic regions, frequently
provided that employers contribute a portion of the pay roll for a health and
vacation fund. This fund was distributed among the workers according to a
predetermined plan, which varied in details in the different markets.
The size of the interindustry differences in vacation provisions presented
in the tables of this article was affected by the fact that the periods studied
varied among industries (from January 1945 to July 1946), and that paid vaca
tion plans were being extended during this period. The changes during «he
interval, however, were apparently not large enough to alter the relative
position of the industries discussed in the text.
An example of the increase in vacation plans is provided by the machinery
industries, which were studied in both January 1945 and October 1946. The

Industry group

Pay-rol^period

Percent
of
estab
lishNum
ber of ments
estab having
paid
lish
vaca
ments
tion
studied
plans
after
1 year’s
service

Metalworking—Continued
Oil-burners, hot-water and steam July 1946.............
heating apparatus.
Power boilers........................................ Jan. 1945.............
Radios.................................................... Jan. 1945.............
Sheet-metal work........................ ....... Jan. 1 9 4 5 ...........
Small arms............................................ Jan. 1945.............
Stoves and ranges................................. July 1946.............
Tanks..................................................... Jan. 1945.............
Tool and die jobbing (shops)............. Jan. 1945.............

270
277
384
72
163
10
619

65
78
28
86
83
100
66

Textiles..........................................................
Cotton textiles...................................... Apr. 1946.............
Hosiery, full-fashioned........................ Jan .1946.............
Hosiery, seamless................................. Jan. 1946.............
Rayon and silk textiles....................... July 1946.............
Textile dyeing and finishing.............. July 1946.............
Woolen and worsted textiles............. Apr. 1946.............

1,447
346
187
205
237
193
279

75
76
67
59
89
88
83

Other industries..........................................
Bakeries.................................................
Cigarettes..............................................
Cigars.....................................................
Corrugated-fiber boxes_____________
Costume jewelry.................... .............
Fiber cans and tu b e s........................
Folding boxes.......................................
Footwear...............................................
Paper and pulp....................................
Paperboard...........................................
Precious jewelry...................... _..........
Set-up boxes..........................................
Smoking, chewing, and snuff to
bacco.
Structural clay products....................
Upholstered furniture.........................
Wood furniture........................ ............

July 1945.............
Jan. 1946.............
Jan. 1946.............
Oct. 1945.............
Jan. 1946.............
Oct. 1945.............
Oct. 1945.............
Oct. 1945.............
Oct. 1945.............
Oct. 1945.............
J an .1946.............
Oct. 1945.............
Jan. 1946.............

4,258
1,309
18
197
170
94
52
187
345
208
111
123
283
31

81
78
52
88
76
75
76
86
88
86
89
62
77

Oct. 1945.............
Oct. 1945.............
Oct. 1945.............

328
288
514

45
56
57

Nonmanufacturing Industries: Of the nonmanufacturing industries for which data were available,
almost all department, clothing, and limited-price
variety stores and electric light and power systems
provided vacations for both plant and office work
ers after 1 year’s service. On the other hand, less
than half of the power laundries and under threefourths of the warehousing establishments reported
such plans for plant workers; 7 out of 10 power
laundries provided paid vacations for their office
employees. In 9 out of 10 warehouse establish
ments, office workers were granted vacations after
1 year (table 9).
Electric light and power was the only industry
in which a 2-week vacation period after a year’s
service was more common than 1 week for plant
workers. Among office workers, the 2-week
period was more frequent than 9 week in the chem
ical industries, as well as in the electric utility inproportion of machinery establishments having vacation plans for plant
workers increased from 70 to more than 80 percent between the two periods,
but there was no marked increase in the length of the vacation period provided.

17
dustry; in the metalworking industries it was of
equal importance with the 1-week vacation.
Regional Vacation Practices: The Southeastern and
Southwestern regions 3 lagged behind other areas
8
in paid-vacation practices in most manufacturing
industries; the Pacific region ranked highest in the
proportion of such plans. New England clothing
and department stores granted 2-week vacations
more frequently than 1-week periods; stores else
where generally followed the custom of 1-week
vacations in effect in both manufacturing and
nonmanufacturing industries. Although vaca
tions were more common for office employees than
for plant workers in almost all industries studied,
this pattern was not found in every region, ap
parently because office workers were sometimes
given vacations on an informal basis.
« For definition of regions, see Wages in the Machinery Industries, Octo
her 1946, Monthly Labor Review, September 1947, p . 317.

Sick Leave
Formal plans for paid sick leave for plant work
ers were found in less than 3 percent of the manu
facturing establishments studied, although more
than 8 percent granted sick leave to office work
ers. Chemical establishments led other manufac
turing industries in formal sick-leave plans and
also differed from other establishments in providing
such leave more frequently for plant than for
office workers. Sick leave was granted more fre
quently in the nonmanufacturing industries stud
ied than in manufacturing. More than a half of
the electric light and power systems regularly paid
their workers for time lost while sick, and a third
of all retail stores studied had plans in operation
in 1945 and 1946. In view of the low incidence of
formal sick leave plans in most industries, no tabu
lations are presented.

0 . S . GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE: 1 9 4 8

Full text of Supplementary Wage Practices in American Industry, 1945-46 : Bulletin of the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics, No. 939

FRASER