4 ms·

You seem to know a lot about this and it's something I've always been interested in: When laws were passed to mandate 8 hour work days, what % of companies had

You seem to know a lot about this and it's something I've always been interested in: When laws were passed to mandate 8 hour work days, what % of companies had 8 hour work days already? 10%? 20%? 80%? Nowadays we know that total productivity is higher if you have 8 hour work days, even though you work less total hours, because your productivity per hour is much higher. Was something like this known at the time? Or was the push to 8 hour work days only so that people could spend time with their family? What kinds of arguments were used?

jacquesm 12y ago
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight-hour_day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight-hour_day Is a good read on the subject and the referenced links are even better (as usual). The 12 hour workday had to be fought for... that tells you something about what %age of employers had 8 hour workdays already, left to their own devices that percentage would be very close to 0. Each and every reduction in hours had to be fought for somehow. When I was an employer in Canada and we had the standard NL holiday/compensation package our employees were so happy, and other companies nearby cautioned me not to be too open about it lest it 'would spread' and their employees would demand similar. Employers do not tend to be on the same side as their employees in arguments like these (though they should be: happy employee = loyal employee).
vidarh 12y ago
Pretty much nobody had 8 hour work days. One of the earliest known instances of someone demanding, and getting, an 8 hour workday was a English-born settler in New Zealand, who worked as a carpenter. In 1840, he negotiated an 8 hour working day for some building work, and he started arguing for it with other workers: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Duncan_Parnell http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Duncan_Parnell Here's a PDF that gives some stats from 1890 until the 1930's: http://www.nber.org/chapters/c4124.pdf http://www.nber.org/chapters/c4124.pdf Prior to the 1890's, it took decades to even get down to the 12, and then 10 hour workday. I don't remember specifically when there started being actual research into the productivity effects of shorter work days, but it definitively was not known at the outset - at the outset, it was driven by workers rights movements.
vacri 12y ago
The 8-hour workday predates the modern idea of time and motion studies, so it's a bit hard to get those kinds of statistics in a meaningful context around productivity. But for the sake of argument, the percentage would be very low, probably pretty much limited to professionals that could work their own hours. Most people were working poor, for whom the workday was 10-16 hours long, six days per week (in the Western world). To give you an idea of the significant lenghth of prior work hours, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight-hour_day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight-hour_day has a pair of phrases: "Women and children in England were granted the ten-hour day in 1847. French workers won the 12-hour day after the February revolution of 1848."
crazy1van 12y ago
"Nowadays we know that total productivity is higher if you have 8 hour work days," We know? Surely on a planet with 7 billion people, some of them can maintain their work efficiency for more than 8 hours. What about the Steve Jobs and John Carmack's of the world? I don't see them being 9-5 people.
- vidarh 12y ago
  It is implicit that when we are talking about regulation of the work day, we are concerned with averages.
- VLM 12y ago
  That seems to have a peculiar and unlikely assumption that they would have produced less by working fewer hours, while almost all human experiences show those at the top of their profession rarely if ever got there by merely punching a timeclock more than the next tier down. I will never be a world class ballet dancer or world class basketball player simply by putting in a little more time than the next guy.
  - crazy1van 12y ago
    Yes more time won't make you world class, but I bet the world class ballet dancer and basketball players often put in more than 8 hours a day.
    - aestra 12y ago
      Probably but at some point you get diminishing returns. The human body needs rest to recover.
      - crazy1van 12y ago
        Absolutely. But I bet the world class athlete knows where that point is for themselves far better than a legislator.
  - danielweber 12y ago

jacquesm 12y ago

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight-hour_day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight-hour_day Is a good read on the subject and the referenced links are even better (as usual). The 12 hour workday had to be fought for... that tells you something about what %age of employers had 8 hour workdays already, left to their own devices that percentage would be very close to 0. Each and every reduction in hours had to be fought for somehow. When I was an employer in Canada and we had the standard NL holiday/compensation package our employees were so happy, and other companies nearby cautioned me not to be too open about it lest it 'would spread' and their employees would demand similar. Employers do not tend to be on the same side as their employees in arguments like these (though they should be: happy employee = loyal employee).

vidarh 12y ago

Pretty much nobody had 8 hour work days. One of the earliest known instances of someone demanding, and getting, an 8 hour workday was a English-born settler in New Zealand, who worked as a carpenter. In 1840, he negotiated an 8 hour working day for some building work, and he started arguing for it with other workers: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Duncan_Parnell http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Duncan_Parnell Here's a PDF that gives some stats from 1890 until the 1930's: http://www.nber.org/chapters/c4124.pdf http://www.nber.org/chapters/c4124.pdf Prior to the 1890's, it took decades to even get down to the 12, and then 10 hour workday. I don't remember specifically when there started being actual research into the productivity effects of shorter work days, but it definitively was not known at the outset - at the outset, it was driven by workers rights movements.

vacri 12y ago

The 8-hour workday predates the modern idea of time and motion studies, so it's a bit hard to get those kinds of statistics in a meaningful context around productivity. But for the sake of argument, the percentage would be very low, probably pretty much limited to professionals that could work their own hours. Most people were working poor, for whom the workday was 10-16 hours long, six days per week (in the Western world). To give you an idea of the significant lenghth of prior work hours, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight-hour_day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight-hour_day has a pair of phrases: "Women and children in England were granted the ten-hour day in 1847. French workers won the 12-hour day after the February revolution of 1848."

crazy1van 12y ago

"Nowadays we know that total productivity is higher if you have 8 hour work days," We know? Surely on a planet with 7 billion people, some of them can maintain their work efficiency for more than 8 hours. What about the Steve Jobs and John Carmack's of the world? I don't see them being 9-5 people.

vidarh 12y ago
It is implicit that when we are talking about regulation of the work day, we are concerned with averages.
VLM 12y ago
That seems to have a peculiar and unlikely assumption that they would have produced less by working fewer hours, while almost all human experiences show those at the top of their profession rarely if ever got there by merely punching a timeclock more than the next tier down. I will never be a world class ballet dancer or world class basketball player simply by putting in a little more time than the next guy.
- crazy1van 12y ago
  Yes more time won't make you world class, but I bet the world class ballet dancer and basketball players often put in more than 8 hours a day.
  - aestra 12y ago
    Probably but at some point you get diminishing returns. The human body needs rest to recover.
    - crazy1van 12y ago
      Absolutely. But I bet the world class athlete knows where that point is for themselves far better than a legislator.
- danielweber 12y ago