50 Years Ago: The printers’ strike for shorter hours
During the past few weeks the equanimity of London Printingdom has been disturbed by a strike of .some magnitude on the question of hours. The men have taken action in support of a demand for a 48-hour week, and though at the time of writing the strike is not at an end, it looks very much as if the employees will succeed in obtaining the demand they put forward as a compromise: 50 hours immediately, and a future consideration of the 48 hours question.
In every quarrel between masters and men, we take up the position that, as between masters and men, the latter can never be wrong. But in the matter of their conduct of the fight, we have seldom found a British trade union in the right— and the present strike affords no welcome exception.
For, think! These men demanded a reduction of 4½ hours per week, and the limitations of their union are shown by their compromising, in the midst of a “winning fight,” for a 2½ hours reduction. That is less than 5 per cent. of the week’s hours. Those who know anything of the printing trade do not need to be told that this 5 per cent. reduction docs not anything like counterbalance the increased output per head which has taken place in the decade or so that has slipped away since the last reduction of hours. The speeding-up and the development of machinery in all departments have been astounding, and new processes are discovered almost daily.
From the SOCIALIST STANDARD, March, 1911.
[A year after the strike was settled the Ministry of Labour reported that while 50 hours were recognised by the union; “it is known that 52½ hours or more are worked in many offices.”]