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Most unions fight moonlighting," fear that it will trip up the drive toward the shorter day or the four-day workweek. They argue that if workers simply use their extra days to take on a second major job, there will be no work-spreading effect to counter either automation or the flood of war babies expected to join the work force in a few years. Furthermore, moonlighting is a powerful argument in itself against the shorter week, and against short hours v. the acquisitive nature of man. At an A.F.L.-C.I.O. conference on the shorter workweek in Washington, George Brooks, research director for the Pulp, Sulphite and Paper Mill Workers, attacked the idea that workers themselves want shorter hours.' Said Brooks: "The evidence is all on; the other side. Hundreds of union officials have testified that the most; numerous and persistent grievances are from men deprived of a chance to make overtime pay. Workers are eager to increase their income, not to work fewer hours."
For this reason, moonlighting is likely to increase with shorter hours. For the economy as a whole, moonlighting helps ease the tight labor market, steps up purchasing power. And despite their campaigning, unions have not been able to whip up much enthusiasm for a drive against dual jobholding on health grounds. In Los Angeles this spring, a Western Industrial Medical Association declined to condemn dual jobholding, instead voted to give the problem more study after several members hailed moonlighters as heirs to the spirit of the nation's founders, insisted that hard work never hurt anybody.