Day laborer

“ If the abbreviated time of eight hours per day for five days of the week, and four hours on Saturday, constitute a week's work, the laborer has more to pay for all of the necessities of life than he would have were full hours and a fair equivalent given for the wages he receives. ”

“ Second, The statute does not provide that the employer and the laborer may not agree with each other as to what time shall constitute a day's work. There are some branches of labor, connected with furnaces, foundries, steam or gas works, where the labor and the exposure of eight hours a day would soon exhaust the strength of a laborer, and render him permanently an invalid. ”

“ Yet after all the truly efficient laborer will be found not to crowd his day with work, but will saunter to his task, surrounded by a wide halo of ease and leisure, and then do but what he likes best. ”

“ All the workingmen of the earth are necessary to the whole Workingman—and he alone will survive of all the human race.
Labor Day is a good day to rest the hands and give the brain a chance—to think about what has been, and is, and is yet to be. ”

“ The expense of transportation had undergone such a vast diminution that one day’s wages of a common laborer would pay for the carriage over a thousand miles of all the grain and meat which he needed for a year’s subsistence. ”

“ If labor is so good and great a thing let all be thankful, for all can have as much of it as may be desired. The eight-hour law is not mandatory to the laborer, nor does possession of leisure entail idleness. It is permitted to the clerk, the shopman, the street peddler—to all who live by the light employment of keeping the wolf from the door without eating him—to abandon their ignoble callings, seize the shovel, the axe and the sledge-hammer and lay about them right sturdily, to the ample gratification of their desire. ”

“ What with compulsory and voluntary labour, a workman has it in his power to earn from five to seven pounds sterling per month. But he must work very hard to do it. The bell is rung at half-past two in the morning; by three o'clock he must be at work, all weathers. He seldom can leave off before nine in the evening. He is allowed half-an-hour for breakfast, an hour for dinner, half-an-hour for tea, and he takes his supper after the labour of the day is finished. The task generally set for the day is the breaking up and carting away of two cubic fathoms of earth to every five men and two horses. ”

“ Some of the hands also carry home the work with them, and labour for many hours after the factories are closed. In millinery and dressmaking there is often a show of complying with the more humane system of eight hours work daily; as a matter of fact, however, this is the exception rather than the rule. The front doors are closed, and young girls are kept for many hours, and during the busy season all night, to work and execute the orders received. There is reason to believe that no appreciable extra remuneration is given for the work done during over-hours. ”

“ Daily labourers working from 6 A.M., to 6 P.M. in large fields with machinery cannot do the hundreds of little matters which the family of the small holder attends to every hour of the day, often in the night—and which give work to women and children as well as the men—work of the most healthful character and most free from demoralizing influences. ”

“ The "long turn" of twenty-four hours and the "seven-day week" I have never heard defended, either in the mill by any foreman or workman, or outside by any member of the management, or even in a public statement. If, by an arrangement of extra workers, it were possible to eliminate these features and still keep the twelve-hour work-day for six days a week, there would, I think, be a certain number of men ready enough to work under that arrangement. I met one man, for example, who said: "Good job, [Pg 151] work all time, no spend, good job save." ”

“ And for two or three months in the year I have elsewhere shown that these are worked with much greater severity than free labourers at the North ever are. For on no farm, and in no factory, or mine, even when double wages are paid for night-work, did I ever hear of men or women working regularly eighteen hours a day. ”

“ Likewise the male laborers are bound once a month, on Sundays and holydays, to take the day watch about the yard, and to act as pasturemen, on receiving their usual pay for a week day's work; this rule applies also to the crook-boys. ”

“ The laborer whom he saw in the early morning swinging his dinner pail while with light steps he marched to the daily task in mill and factory, and whom he watched in the evening's dusk after the factory sirens had blown the working man's curfew, hurrying home anxious to reach his humble fireside, and for whom heretofore he had only known feelings of deepest contempt, suddenly had become a man who benefitted preciously far more of his life than any yegg he could recall. ”

“ Placing on one side the generally injurious influence of night-labour, [62] the duration of the process of production, unbroken during the 24 hours, offers very welcome opportunities of exceeding the limits of the normal working day, e.g., in the branches of industry already mentioned, which are of an exceedingly fatiguing nature; the official working day means for each worker usually 12 hours by night or day. ”

“ Is it not something extraordinary, from a purely economic point of view, that while it is widely recognized that every one should have one day in seven for rest, that while business men are expected to close up their offices on the Sabbath, and all working men and women are given this day in the stores, the factories, and mines—the cook and maids have their Sundays out, and their week-day afternoons—that nowhere on earth, so far as I know, has there ever been a systematic arrangement by which mothers, as a class, have any specially arranged hours or days for rest! ”

“ I HARDLY know enough on the subject to give an opinion as to the time when eight hours are to become a day's work, but I am perfectly satisfied that eight hours will become a labor day.
The working people should be protected by law; if they are not, the capitalists will require just as many hours as human nature can bear. We have seen here in America street-car drivers working sixteen and seventeen hours a day. ”

“ I have only one room to work and eat in, or I should lose more time. Altogether I labour 141⁄4 hours every day, and I must work on Sundays—at least 40 Sundays in the year. One may as well work as sit fretting. ”

“ In all work which cannot be stopped even for a single day (as in the case of nurses, engine-drivers, tramway, electric or gas workers, etc.) , the workers are afforded a day's rest some other day of the week instead of the regular holiday. ”

“ Six days shalt thou [111] labour, and do all thy work: but the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God; in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son.'"
"WE WORK ON SUNDAY TILL DINNER-TIME."
Vol. i. page 110.
"Why, yes, Sir; that's plain enough to be understood; but such poor folks as us can't afford to rest from labour on a Sunday."
"Do you think that God would command poor people to rest from their labour on the Sabbath, unless He knew that it would be for their good? And, besides, do you think that poverty will be admitted as an excuse for a neglect of duty? ”

“ Hours for the domestic worker must be definite, as they are in shop or factory work. The working day must be shortened. Time outside of working hours must be absolutely the worker's own. The worker must either live outside the home in which she works, or must have privacy, convenience, comfort, and the opportunity to receive her friends, as she would at home. ”

“ This standardizing of the day of labor, while not general in the country, had its effect. The twelve-hour day, while still long, was a decided betterment over the sixteen-hour day. There was beginning to be a little possible margin for social, mental, and recreational activity. But the twelve-hour day must inevitably get the better of the human system and of the spirit of man. It is too long and too steady a grind, and habit and long hours soon tell their story. They inevitably lead to the condition of the "man with the hoe." ”

“ So we find working days of 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18 hours, i.e., of the most different lengths.
The capitalist has bought the labour-power at its day-rate. To him its use-value belongs during one working day. He has thus acquired the right to make the labourer work for him during one day. But what is a working day? ”

“ The work is necessarily continuous day and night, and from Monday morning to Saturday evening it often happens that the labourer never quits the precincts of the works, snatching his intervals of rest beside the pans. ”

“ When the workmen of the European Continent demand 'the three eights'—eight hours of work, eight hours of rest and refreshment, physical and mental, and eight hours of sleep—some of them are aware of the fact that this reform already exists in the Anglo-Saxon countries; but all are ignorant of this other fact that, during the Middle Ages, in an immense number of labor corporations and cities, a work-day was often only nine, eight and even seven hours long. ”

“ Twenty-eight hours a week. Remember the new labor law the Earth government put into effect before we left? It proscribed a maximum work week of twenty-five hours for every man. We came here to escape restrictions, but we've saddled ourselves with more hours of manual labor than the least skilled laborer has to do on Earth. Firth! I'm not a manual laborer ”

“ I am speaking, of course, of that class of people of our race who depend mainly upon a day's work—working by the day, as we call it—for their living. These men with whom I talked gave several illustrations of this tendency. In the first place, I think they mentioned, without exception, this fact—that if the coloured people are employed in a factory, they work well and steadily for a few days, say until Saturday night comes, and they are paid their week's wages. ”

“ So maker's right as an alternative to taking the advice of Jesus would not work. In practice nothing was possible in that direction but to pay a worker by labor time so much an hour or day or week or year. ”

“ In certain weaving factories I have been told that the girls are required to work sixteen hours a day; and that on Sundays they are allowed to have some rest, being then required to work but ten hours! ”

“ As all work, men and women alike, and as machinery has been brought here to a wonderful degree of perfection, the actual labor necessary to maintain the people is, of necessity, very light. At first, a hundred or so years ago, in the early days of the community, the time of labor was fixed at five hours per day. But every decade, with the growth of the population, the labor hours have been diminishing. ”

“ The Saturday night and Sunday debauch of the peons generally commences after a hard week’s work, and frequently lasts thirty-six hours without sleep, and sixty hours without food. After having slept off the effects of drink, they are ready for business Tuesday or Wednesday morning. When they return to work they give a legal day’s labor, without persuasion to stimulate their activity. ”

“ By working very hard and without reference to the clock, a woman and three or four children so employed may earn fifteenpence a day, and out of this the produce of two whole days' labour out of the six must go to pay the rent of the miserable one room, which is a heated and unwholesome factory from morning until night, and a bedchamber from night until morning. ”

“ Of course, there is a humanitarian side to the shorter day and the shorter week, but dwelling on that side is likely to get one into trouble, for then leisure may be put before work instead of after work -- where it belongs. Twenty years ago, introducing the eight hour day generally would have made for poverty and not for wealth. Five years ago, introducing the five day week would have had the same result. The hours of labor are regulated by the organization of work and by nothing else. ”

“ Weekly Rest in Commerce and Offices, Report VII (1) , International Labour Conference, 39th Sess., Geneva, 1956 (1955) , passim, especially at 18, 24-26. 'This tendency to ensure that the weekly rest is taken at the same time by all workers on the day established by tradition or custom has an obvious social purpose, namely to enable the workers to take part in the life of the community and in the special forms of recreation which are available on certain days.' Id., at 24. ”

“ Under ordinary circumstances, House meeting at Three o'clock, we should have adjourned sharp at Eleven to-night; but the fact is, my day's work began at Ten this morning. That is a necessity of my position. With interval of hasty meals, I have been accustomed to work a maximum of twelve hours a day, often running up to fourteen. That, however, now over. Settled by Working Man that Labour Day should not exceed Eight Hours. We will, therefore, now break up. I daresay some of you Hon. Gentlemen, engaged at the Bar or in affairs in the City, commenced your work even earlier than Ten? ”

“ As far as possible heavy, dirty work should be done in the morning, the workers are more able to do it then, and besides, the cook does not wish to do such things when getting the dinner, nor the waitress when she should be dressed for the afternoon, nor the mistress at the social time of the day. ”

“ Work in extra hours during crop, is to be paid as follows: To the mill gang, and to the crook gang, for working through the breakfast hour, one stiver, and for working through noon, two stivers per day. Extra provision is not to be given, except at the option of the laborers in place of the money, or in part of it. ”