Elght- hour Oil

Eight-hour Oil

The Standard Oil Co. of New Jersey, regarded as the parent company of the Standard Oil group, as the leader among the lesser companies which resulted from the break-up of the old Standard Oil Co., made an announcement last week. It gave notice that henceforward the employes of the Carter Oil Co., its chief subsidiary in the mid-continental field, would work 8 hours a day instead of 12.

In the 66 years of the oil industry, it has always had a 12-hour day. The change to the 8-hour from the 12-hour day in the producing fields will mean, since work is continuous, the employment of three shifts instead of two shifts of men. The hourly rate of pay was increased simultaneously with the reduction of hours, so that those employes who formerly received $12 for 12 hours will receive $10 for 8 hours. The change in hours and pay was agreed to by the employes.

Critics saw in the action of the Standard Oil Co. of New Jersey a spreading of the same movement which took place in the steel industry in the summer of 1923 (TIME, Apr. 21, June 4, July 16, Aug. 13, 1923, STEEL), and prophesied that it would spread to all the oil companies.

Two years ago, John Davison Rockefeller Jr., addressing employes of the Standard Oil Co. of New Jersey, declared that the 12-hour day was "uneconomic and antisocial, hence bad business."