The eight-hour day movement (also known as the 40-hour week movement or the short-time movement) was a social movement that appeared in various countries to regulate the length of a working day. The goal was preventing excesses and abuses of working time.
The modern movement originated in the Industrial Revolution in Britain, where industrial production in large factories transformed working life. At that time, the working day could range from 10 to 16 hours, the work week was typically six days, and child labour was common. Since the 19th century, the eight-hour workday has been gradually adopted in various countries and industries, with widespread adoption occurring in the first half of the 20th century.
In 1593, Philip II of Spain established an eight-hour work day for the construction workers in the American Viceroyalties by a royal edict known as Ordinances of Philip II (Spanish: Ordenanzas de Felipe II). This established:
An exception was applied to mine workers, whose work day was limited to seven hours. These working conditions were also applied to natives in the Spanish America, who also kept their own legislation organised in "Indian republics" where they elected their own mayors.
In the early 19th century, Robert Owen raised the demand for a ten-hour day in 1810, and instituted it in his "socialist" enterprise at New Lanark. By 1817, he had formulated the goal of the eight-hour day and coined the slogan: "Eight hours' labour, Eight hours' recreation, Eight hours' rest". Women and children in England were granted the ten-hour day via the Factories Act 1847. French workers won the twelve-hour day after the February Revolution of 1848.
A shorter working day and improved working conditions were part of the general protests and agitation for Chartist reforms and the early organisation of trade unions. There were initial successes in achieving an eight-hour day in New Zealand and by the Australian labour movement for skilled workers in the 1840s and 1850s, though most employed people had to wait to the early and mid twentieth century for the condition to be widely achieved through the industrialised world through legislative action.
The International Workingmen's Association took up the demand for an eight-hour day at its Congress in Geneva in 1866, declaring "The legal limitation of the working day is a preliminary condition without which all further attempts at improvements and emancipation of the working class must prove abortive", and "The Congress proposes eight hours as the legal limit of the working day." Karl Marx saw it as of vital importance to the workers' health, writing in Das Kapital (1867): "By extending the working day, therefore, capitalist production...not only produces a deterioration of human labour power by robbing it of its normal moral and physical conditions of development and activity, but also produces the premature exhaustion and death of this labour power itself."
The red triangle has been a left-wing political symbol since the 19th century.
On Labor Day in 1890 in France workers wore a red triangle as a symbol of the eight-hour working day they were fighting for, with the three points representing 8 hours of work, 8 hours of rest, and 8 hours of leisure.
It is still used with this meaning in some parts of Europe, in conjunction with Labour Day celebrations on 8 May.
In July 1889 in Paris, at the meeting of the Second International, the workers' association bringing together European socialist and workers' parties, decided that the following year, workers would demonstrate on May 1 to demand the eight-hour day. The red leather triangle was adopted on 1 May 1890 in Paris during the workers' struggles so that the demonstrator could distinguish himself from the man in the street. The badge symbolizes workers' demand for a maximum eight-hour work day, which reserved 8 hours of sleep and 8 hours of leisure. The inscription "1 May, 8 hours of work" was sewn onto the triangle for the demonstration.
Following the immense success of the mobilization of the 1 May 1890 – in Belgium, 150,000 workers went on strike – it was decided shortly afterward to make this date a worldwide day of action, this is the creation of the International Workers' Day (French: Journée internationale des travailleurs). The eight-hour day was obtained in 1919 in France and in 1921 in Belgium.
World War I and Labour Reforms
Prior to World War I, efforts to reduce working hours, particularly to establish an 8-hour workday, progressed slowly and unevenly across various nations. With the onset of the war in 1914, belligerent countries suspended restrictions on working hours in industries critical to the war effort, prioritizing production over labour standards. However, the intense demand for munitions revealed that extending working hours did not yield proportional increases in output. Conversely, shorter working hours were found to enhance worker efficiency stemming from the improved health of the worker and his increased production capacity for invested efforts.
In 1915 Uruguay became a pioneer in labour legislation by adopting the 8-hour workday, formalised by (law) Ley N° 5.350
Another consequence of World War I, the Russian Revolution of 1917, significantly influenced global labour policies. The Bolsheviks’ radical rhetoric and labour reforms, including the 8-hour workday, inspired socialist and communist movements worldwide. In 1918–1919, revolutions erupted in Germany, Hungary, and Finland, while strikes and labour unrest surged in Britain, France, and the United States. Western leaders, employers, and trade unionists feared that without addressing workers’ grievances, a "global proletarian revolution" could destabilise capitalist democracies.
Thus, better understanding of labour efficiency, fear of revolutionary movements and liberal aspirations of the nations drove efforts to improve working conditions. International cooperation in this direction resulted in the Versailles Treaty's labour provisions, signed in 1919, which included creation of the International Labour Office, later renamed to the International Labour Organization (ILO).
The eight-hour day was the first topic discussed by the International Labour Organization which resulted in the Hours of Work (Industry) Convention, 1919 ratified by 52 countries as of 2016. The eight-hour day movement forms part of the early history for the celebration of May Day, and Labour Day in some countries.