ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the social organization of production, and in particular the organization of labour time, already figures prominently in these efforts to increase efficiency. It examines relationship between hours and employment: on the one hand relative costs of achieving extra output via additional hours or additional employment, and on the other the extent to which cuts in hours may provide basis for additional employment opportunities. Trade unions have periodically championed this latter argument, advocating worktime reductions as a response to unemployment. In addition to being one of motors driving the search for increased time-efficiency, improved scheduling of production and effective warehouse management, current technology has formed part of the impetus behind the drive for increased manpower flexibility. The dimensions of manpower flexibility are interdependent, with functional flexibility being natural concommitant to temporal flexibility, so that increased manpower flexibility brings with it increased management control over task, duration, and scheduling of activities, usually rationalized by the pursuit of minimum costs.
