Working day

“ 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. ”

“ At this early hour many sickly girls, whose business, like that of the poor worm, is to produce, with patient toil, the finery that bedecks the thoughtless and luxurious, traverse our streets, making towards the scene of their daily labour, and catching, as if by stealth, in their hurried walk, the only gasp of wholesome air and glimpse of sunlight which cheer their monotonous existence during the long train of hours that make a working day. ”

“ The combined working day produces, relatively to an equal sum of isolated working-days, a greater quantity of use-values, and, consequently, diminishes the labour-time necessary for the production of a given useful effect. ”

“ The maximum working-day applied only to industrial labour lacks completeness, it is said; all work, even in agriculture and in public business, should be limited to eight hours, if the general maximum working-day is to become a reality. ”

“ 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! ”

“ Turning now from theory to fact, we find that there has been a great improvement in the condition of labor in this respect. At the beginning of the nineteenth century the almost universal working day was, as McMaster tells us, from sun to sun. As factories grew up the habits of agricultural labor were carried over into industrial occupations, and working days of 16 and 18 hours were not uncommon. ”

“ Tho the farmer's working day in the busiest season of summer is very long compared with that of factory or office workers, his working day at other seasons is usually much shorter than the average urban worker's day. ”

“ Not many years ago the working day in most factories was 12 hours long for six days a week, or 72 hours for the week. This working period has fallen steadily to approximately 40 to 44 hours a week of 8 working hours a day. ”

“ 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? ”

“ At a period in which eight hours is rapidly coming to be accepted as the standard length of the working day, the principal mills in this industry are operating on a 12-hour work schedule, and many of their workmen are employed seven days in every week. ”

“ Under Article VII, which deals with working hours, provision is made that the duration of a normal working day must in no case exceed eight hours for day work and seven hours for night work, and that the duration of a normal day, first, for persons under eighteen years of age, and second, for persons working in especially hard or health-endangering branches of industry, must not exceed six hours. In case the nature of the work is such that it requires a working day in excess of the normal, two or more shifts shall be engaged. ”

“ What are a few of the things that we shall then try to get?
The working day is too long. In some occupations it covers far too many hours, and in most occupations it covers more than it ideally should. ”

“ On this Labor Day weekend, we honor the working men and women who are the strength and the soul of America. For people who work hard all year, this weekend offers the opportunity to relax with our families at a picnic, a barbecue, a beach, or just in our own homes. ”

“ 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. ”

“ One full day and one half day off each week, making a total of forty-four hours weekly which is the standard working week in most industrial occupations. At least two free Sundays a month should be given and a convenient week-day substituted for the other two Sundays. If Saturday is not the best half day to give, another afternoon may be arranged with the Home Assistant. ”

“ We also know that many of them are working weekends or on the night shift, times they've traditionally spent at home caring for their families. In our round-the-clock economy, there just doesn't seem to be enough hours during the day for working Americans to do everything they need to. ”

“ Work in business is generally divided into two periods. Yet this division can not always be effected, and in railroad and steamship positions, in post offices, upon trolley lines, in hotels, in hospitals, and in other cases too numerous to mention, where work must follow a continuous round, the working hours are divided into more than two periods, according to the nature of the work and the interests of the employer, not however exceeding a fixed number of hours per day or per week. ”

“ This leaves us five hundred and forty-nine working days. Of these five hundred are claimed for work, the odd days are used for travelling and recreation, if you see fit. Married men will generally take their families for an outing twice a year. ”

“ But with all this we have only required 60 half-days' work of 5 hours each to obtain the fruits of the earth, 40 for housing, and 50 for clothing, which only makes half a year's work, as the year consists of 300 working-days if we deduct holidays. ”

“ It is obvious that men or women working from ten to sixteen hours daily will have little strength or leisure for study, or activity in revolutionary work. It is also patent that wages are bound to be higher where men toil eight hours a day than where they work sixteen hours. It requires two shifts of men, working eight hours daily, to run a machine that one man runs sixteen hours. ”

“ The practice of boys working at all by day and night turns either in the usual course of things, or at pressing times, seems inevitably to open the door to their not unfrequently working unduly long hours. ”

“ Under modern conditions there are slightly more than 300 working days in the year, taking out Sundays and holidays and making no allowance for illness or voluntary absence. In the period with which we are dealing there were only from 230 to 240 working days in the year ”

“ That was what made it the last.
"It occurred to me," the padre continued, "that possibly there might be some way in which I could give you a help up. It is what we are all in the world for, from king to peasant, or tramp even, working the same plan in different material and judged by the workmanship. Only, friend, a man should choose the best material that he can get; it permits finer work. For example"—he smiled through his spectacles—"a violin can render the delicacies of the Prize Song better than a whistle. A peasant governs his home, and the King—God bless him!—governs the kingdom." ”

“ I am directed by the men in your employ who are members of the Labourers' Union to ask if you will consent to raise your men 1s. per week. Further, if you would be willing to so arrange the hours of work as to make it possible for their working week to finish at one o'clock on Saturday. ”

“ To find, Sunday morning after Sunday morning, crowds of men who have been working laboriously for long hours in factories at exhausting drudgery all through the week, appearing carefully dressed at hours when most people in better circumstances are only getting up or have got no further than the commencement of breakfast, and to observe the intellectual keenness which these men show for subjects of serious import, compel one to think on somewhat utopian lines of what might be under better circumstances. ”

“ 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. ”

“ You say you cannot do it till Monday. 'Well,' he says, 'I shall get it done elsewhere.' People working at home are found to do it, and as they have not got the machinery or appliances it means that they work at it all Sunday, and make their little children of nine or ten work too, whereas the grown women may not work an hour longer in factories. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ At four o’clock there are longer pauses in our labors. There is more leaning on shovels and more frequent glances at our timepiece, the sun, as he sinks in the western heavens. The shadow of the hill opposite creeps slowly down its side. It is a cool, welcome shadow. The strongest worker secretly welcomes it. Though he be a “horse of a man,” his muscles also feel the effects of the long day’s labor. ”

“ The day-laborer, when his work is done, receives the wages of his labor, and goes to his home content and with a cheerful spirit, whistling on his way, his mind free from all perplexing plans and cares, and enjoys his evening in pleasant intercourse with his family and neighbors, and, when he retires to rest, has the blessing of sound sleep, the reward of his healthful toil: while his wealthy employer, whose lot he may perhaps be unwisely inclined to envy, has, perchance, his mind agitated and his rest disturbed by busy schemes and worrying doubts and anxieties. ”

“ Under this method, the master summed up the value of the property of the Gas Company as follows:
'The new ordinance deprives the complainant of the right to add 10 cents per M. C. F. to the price of gas, unless paid on or before the 15th day of the month following that in which the gas was consumed, and the evidence shows that the average working capital for the past five years was $120,000, and that when the ordinance went into effect, that they were then using $142,000 as working capital. ”

“ My working hours are determined by circumstances—morning, afternoon, evening, or late at night. When there is a "must" involved, I work when I must; when I am free I work when I choose or when I feel that I can. ”

“ There is no cleavage between white-collar workers and manual workers, between artists and artisans, musicians and mechanics, lawyers and accountants and architects and miners.
Tomorrow, Labor Day, belongs to all of us. Tomorrow, Labor Day, symbolizes the hope of all Americans. Anyone who calls it a class holiday challenges the whole concept of American democracy. ”

“ The collective workers should take care that their day-room is kept cool and airy, and the fire and lights properly managed. Each should ensure a daily walk,—either by being sent out on business, or by the work being so arranged as to admit of an hour’s exercise, morning or evening. ”

“ On the Saturday evening—that period which ought to be the sweetest hour of the week to the working man—when the reward of his labour ought to be as freely given as it would ever be gratefully received—even this is pilfered from him. ”

“ The day-week is decidedly better. You work only ten hours, from seven to five. Those evenings men spend with their families, or at the movies, or going to bed early to rest up for the "long turn." It is not, however, as if it were a "ten-hour industry." Some of the wear and tear of the seven fourteen-hour shifts of the night-week protracts itself into the day-week, and you hear men saying: "This ten-hour day seems to tire me more than the fourteen ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Eat, work and sleep is the ancient trinity of slavery. The modern life demands leisure; the opportunity for enjoyment and self-improvement. How it is best to be secured is a question about which there is a variety of opinions. One of the plans to give the workingman more time for himself is that of the Saturday half-holiday. We see no particular advantage in this over the eight-hour-for-a-day's-work plan.
It seems to us that if laborers worked eight hours a day and had Sunday for a holiday instead of a holy day, all their requirements would be better answered than in any other way. ”