How will we win the 32 hour workweek?
What would an extra 8 hours a week mean for our lives as working people? With a 32 hour work week, first and foremost, it would mean 8 fewer hours of exhausting time we give to the boss. With that time and energy back, we could spend it with our families, loved ones, and community. We could take care of our health with rest, exercise, and eating right. We could pursue education and enrich ourselves with arts and culture. Crucially, we could further organize and build the working class politics that our country and our people need.
Conversations about fighting for a 32 hour workweek may feel far-fetched. As outlandish as this demand may sound to some today, this was a very real question a century ago. Union leaders and workers – even progressive politicians and economists – grappled with the question not of IF a shorter work week was possible, but instead HOW we would win it.1
Winning back our time has the potential to radically change our lives for the better, which is why the labor movement must once again struggle to win back our time from the boss.
From the fields to the mills
In the early 19th century, the US economy was primarily agricultural, accounting for approximately 90% of the workforce.2 The country was based on a population of farmers in rural areas with a small population of merchants and craftsmen located in the cities. After the industrial revolution, the heart of the economy began to transform into something totally new. As a result, the lives of the vast majority of the population – meaning working people – would never be the same.
Early industrial production in the US was birthed in the textile mills of the Northeast.3 This new system required workers to come to a factory (owned by the boss) to work on machinery and equipment (also owned by the boss). Their every waking moment on the job was closely scrutinized by their supervisors (paid by the boss). Working in these factories was so unappealing that employers had to set up targeted recruitment to even draw in a sufficient workforce to run the mills.4
These recruiters specifically targeted young women in rural areas because of changing technological and social dynamics in agriculture that created a large available pool of workers to draw from. The mill recruiters would mislead these women with promises of decent pay and living quarters, opportunities for education and supportive community, and especially financial independence. They even downplayed the hours they would work there, but ultimately demanded 12-14 hour workdays for 6 days a week.
Factory life also meant that production could start running around the clock and year-round – compared to the agricultural economy which started and stopped with the sun and the seasons. Mill owners ran the factories essentially non-stop to maximize their profits, leading to the creation of the first shift systems to ensure the factory would never slow down, even as workers collapsed from exhaustion.5 Most work had been flexible before this point, but now schedules and productivity would come under strict regulation. The only times the mills slowed down were to maintain the machines so they wouldn’t break down. Even if a worker lost an arm in the machinery or worse, they would simply swap them out and continue unabated so long as the loom was still running.
The practices from these early mills served as a cradle for the practices of the new industrial America. Workers put in grueling days of up to 16 hours of work before collapsing at home and doing it again.6 The drudgery of factory life introduced new horrors, all driven by an increasingly powerful set of corporate industrialists that would come to completely transform the economy. These brutal working conditions drove workers into an early grave, creating the first man-made drop in life expectancy in US history.7
Why was it that the bosses wanted to run their factories non-stop and force workers to pull these soul crushing shifts? To early industrialists, it was just basic math. The logic behind building textile mills in the first place was to scale up production, cut costs, and to meticulously manage the workforce to drive productivity in ways they never had before. And once they had made the early capital investments in the expensive equipment and facilities, running them non-stop allowed them to recoup their costs as soon as possible.
As long as there were enough workers around, what did it matter to them if they ground them down, body and soul, until they quit or died? This all meant that capitalists had new incentives under this system to squeeze every minute they could out of a worker to keep the factory running, and to squeeze every drop of effort from them while they were under their roof.
Raising the call
Alongside the birth of industrial production and factory life, organized workers began fighting back against this exploitation from the very beginning. The earliest mill founded in Pawtucket, RI, through the transplantation of British textile equipment, was also the first to see a major strike.8 In 1824, mill workers struck after the boss attempted to cut their wages and increase their working hours. Similar actions were led by mill workers in Lowell, MA throughout the 1830’s and 40’s as owners kept attempting to increase the workday from 12 to 14 hours. As industrial life expanded to new sectors, so too did the harsh working conditions that came with it. Resistance to these conditions followed wherever they spread.
Some of the earliest organizational successes were won in the skilled trades, where workers were most organized through their crafts. From early on, skilled trades workers opposed the introduction of shift work and moves to factory production, but could ultimately do little to stop it.9 These workers did maintain greater leverage against the boss in the early phase of industrialization, allowing them to be the first to make gains for a shorter day. However, their position was always precarious. The bosses were constantly looking for ways to deskill their work by introducing new technology, and then quickly replacing these skilled workers completely with lower paid workers.
One of the earliest labor organizations committed to organizing workers across all trades, skilled and unskilled, was the Knights of Labor.10 The Knights were founded in 1869 to unite workers from every industry (and notably across racial divisions) to fight for a better life. They organized and fought for changes at specific workplaces, but also attempted to provide a vision for broader societal change as well. Beginning in the early 1880’s, they started to make the 8 hour workday a central demand of the whole labor movement. The central slogan for the movement was “8 hours work, 8 hours rest, 8 hours for what we will.”
The fight reached a fever pitch only a few years later with a national movement for a general strike on May 1, 1886.11 The Knights and other unions came together to plan for these massive actions. May 1 was essentially given as an ultimatum for bosses everywhere – give in on our demands or we will strike everywhere and shut this country down.
When May 1 arrived, over half a million workers across sectors went on strike, especially in the country’s major industrial centers.12 That was 1% of the entire population at the time, which would be the equivalent of millions going on strike today. In Chicago, one of the largest industrial centers, more than 30,000 workers joined the strike. As actions continued and the cops and bosses attempted to violently repress the movement, this historic moment climaxed with the Haymarket bombing on May 4 at a massive demonstration of working people.
To this day, no one knows who threw the bomb. Many believe that a provocateur from the anti-union Pinkerton agency was responsible, hoping to provoke an onslaught of violence that would crush the workers and undermine the movement.
With the confrontation providing a convenient excuse, the city immediately arrested 8 leading union organizers and charged them with murder. Most of them hadn’t even been there at all. 7 of them were sentenced to death. Ultimately 5 of them would die. This injustice was denounced all over the world. But their memory and movement would be celebrated every year on May 1, or what became International Workers Day all over the world.
Victory for the 8 hour workday
After further decades of organizing, the first major victory of the movement for the 8 hour workday came in 1919 in New York City by garment workers.13 Ultimately, these workers were at the cutting edge of the struggle for the 8 hour workday because of their high level of organization and history of militant action, as well as the opportunity presented by a national and international context that created the right opportunity for them to win.
Garment workers in New York City, organized by the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union (ILGWU), had been fighting for years against unsafe conditions and grueling hours. Just like the mill workers, they would put in 12 to 14 hours a day for 6 days a week. In 1909, this came to a head with a massive strike known as the Uprising of the 20,000.14 Soon after in 1911, the miserable conditions in the factory resulted in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, one of the deadliest workplace accidents in American history. One of the main reasons the accident was so deadly was because the exits were kept locked to prevent workers from taking unauthorized breaks, and so there was no escaping the flames.
The organized and militant garment workers entered contract negotiations in 1919, an explosive year for the labor movement. The post-war labor upsurge of 1919, called “Red Summer” at the time, was one of the greatest periods of labor unrest in the country’s history. Some estimate as much as 20% of the total industrial workforce struck that year.15 Internationally, the Russian Revolution of 1917 created the first ever workers’ state in the world, which immediately established the 8 hour workday by law across all sectors of the economy.16 With this backdrop, the ILGWU finally succeeded in scoring the first contractual guarantee of the 8 hour workday for any industry in the U.S., setting a new horizon for what was possible.
The battle would continue to make the 8 hour workday standard across the economy. The upsurge of the 1930’s following the Great Depression saw an unprecedented period of labor militancy in the country. The Congress of Industrial Organization (CIO) was founded as a new labor federation in 1935, and dedicated its mission to advancing the cause of industrial unionism by organizing workers wall-to-wall through aggressive struggle against the boss. As a result, union membership went from around 3 million in 1930 to 8.7 million by 1940.17 Though strike activity was low immediately after the start of the Depression due to high unemployment rates, the crisis led to a sharp uptick in strike activity. Over 1.5 million workers struck in 1934 and continued to increase to a peak of 2.5 million workers striking in 1937.
Shorter work days was a central demand across many of these fights, along with union recognition. One of the earliest CIO victories came with the United Steelworkers of America’s contract in 1937, establishing the industry standard for the 8 hour workday. The CIO then scored further victories soon after with new contracts including the 8 hour workday in auto, mining, manufacturing, and transportation that same year.18
With each new industry that was organized, the working standards of the whole nation shifted with it. After an extremely tumultuous year of strikes and union victories for the 8 hour day, in 1938 the political system conceded to these demands for the 8 hour workday for the whole movement by passing the Fair Labor Standards Act.19 For the first time, the law required overtime pay for anything past 40 hours per week, in addition to establishing the first federal minimum wage and restrictions on child labor.
When the “inevitable” became “impossible”
The labor movement of the 30’s and 40’s wasn’t satisfied with these victories alone though. They didn’t want to stop at the 8 hour workday or 40 hour workweek. Instead, they continued to demand cuts to working hours because they saw that industry continued to become more productive and efficient with the introduction of new technology, and believed that this should naturally mean a shorter workday, with the same pay.
This wasn’t considered such a radical idea either. Mainstream British economist John Maynard Keynes – arguably one the most influential economists in the world due to his role in establishing the post-war American economic system – wrote extensively on technology and the workday. In an essay entitled “Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren” published in 1930, Keynes would posit that with continued technological advancements, the workday would naturally continue to shorten.20 He envisioned that by 2030, his own grandchildren would be working 15 hours per week, leaving people with more time to live fulfilling lives.
So why was it that the ambitious demands of the labor movement and predictions of mainstream economics never came to be? Instead of working 15 hours a week, much of the American workforce today finds themselves working well above 40 hours per week, balancing two jobs or struggling with forced overtime. Today nearly 30 million workers in the US put in over 48 hours per week on the job, and more than half of all full time employees work more than 40 hours per week.21 What changed this trajectory to where we are today?
After WWII, corporate forces began a counter assault on the labor movement that started to slow the roll of union victories of the previous two decades. The Taft-Hartley Act of 1947 marked the beginning of this assault on the growing strength of labor, including major limitations on strike tactics available to unions under the law, the creation of the racist “right-to-work” architecture, and the imposition of anti-communist affidavits.22 These assaults on the labor movement targeted the most militant and progressive elements that had led the fight for the shorter day and greater political and economic power for working people. Instead a new deal was offered to organized labor – accept your piece of a growing economic pie, but do not push for a larger cut of the whole.
That translated to a limited horizon for the labor movement in subsequent decades. Corporate forces continued to conspire to undermine unions, leading to the decline we have seen since 1980. Technology would continue to get more productive at that same time, but those gains would be primarily enjoyed by the wealthy owners and investors, not by the workers. Instead of shortening the workday, the extra productivity would go towards growing the company’s profits. Suddenly the dream of a shorter workday went from being understood as an “inevitability” for our future to an “impossibility.” The agenda in the labor movement essentially dropped calls for a shorter day, and these demands faded to a historical fight in the past.
American workers today are estimated to be 400% more productive than in the 1940’s.23 Despite the massive increase in productivity introduced by technology and education, workers are putting in longer, not shorter, days. That is because those technological improvements always come with a choice. Employers have consistently chosen to line their pockets and even lay off growing portions of the industrial workforce rather than allow the workers who built the company to live an easier life.
Where do we go from here?
This story doesn’t need to end here! We are in a moment today which presents both immense challenges and opportunities. The economy of the country is transforming once again, with artificial intelligence creating the conditions to impact almost every sector of the economy. These new technological advancements in the hands of the bosses – just like previous advancements over the last two hundred years – will mean our employers attempting to squeeze that much more out of us to reap their super profits. With the nature of these technological shifts in particular, bosses stand to be putting more and more people out of work completely. High tech consulting firms like Mckinsey estimate that 30% of work today will be automated by 2030, especially hitting manufacturing, customer service, office administration, warehousing, and logistics.24 This would leave tens of millions of people struggling to survive across the country. Ensuring that these new technologies will help rather than hurt working people will be a major struggle to come.
As the labor movement gains strength again with ambitious organizing plans and militant fights, now is a time to present a bold vision for the entire working class. Presenting this vision to the unorganized 90% of the U.S. workforce is necessary to dramatically grow the ranks of organized labor. The UAW boldly revived the demand for the 32 hour workweek again in the Big 3 contract fight, and it shocked many to even see these demands seriously floated by a major union.
While the UAW didn’t win the contract demand this time, they put a new item on the working class agenda that unions can push for. For all organized and unorganized workers, the 32 hour workweek can now provide a vision of the kind of lives we can demand from our employers and the entire political system. We can and must fight for visionary demands like the 32 hour workweek. If we do not fight to transform our society for the better, then we will be doomed to suffer its transformation for the worse.
References
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