The Eight Hour Day is a national celebration. Due to its wide spread acceptance, it could be said that it is a world celebration, known as Labor Day. Arguably, it could also be said that it’s a celebration that it taken advantage of. People see it as a day off of work, and the students think of it as an extra day off from classes. They don’t realize that they are celebrating a day in which these Australian workers fought and won their right to have a limited number of hours to work in a day. They don’t realize that this change in hours did affect the wages, the number of unemployed workers, and the lives of the workers in which they lived outside of their job.
“To all outward appearance, at any rate, it has had no effect on wages at all; it has neither raised them nor reduced them. The wages in all the building trades remained exactly the same from 1856, when they shortened their hours to labor, till 1860” (Rae, 1892: 28). This is pretty intuitive to see because the workers will be working fewer hours than normal, thus decreasing the wages payable of the business. If anything, the workers should have fought for an increase in wages to make up for the loss, but this wasn’t done, probably because the cost of living was on the fall. “The arguments that back the philosophy of the eight-hour day may be grouped under the three heads of economic, social, and human necessities. It is demanded by economic necessity, for the reason that the modern factory can turn out more goods than are needed to supply the wants of people. Machines and inventions are continually introduced, resulting in no higher wages for the worker and the piling up of goods for which there is no market” (McVey, 1903: 523).
On the whole the reduction of the working day to eight hours has had no very influence on the numbers of the unemployed in Victoria any more than on the rate of wages. Both these circumstances point to the conclusion that shortening the day has exercised an inconsiderable effect on the amount of the workman’s production. “A shortening of hours has always two immediate effects – it improves the mettle of the masters, and it improves the mettle of the men” (Rae, 1892: 32-33). So this change improves the workers (and even the “masters”) mentally and physically. Because of the reduction in wages payable, the company can hire more people to bring up the wages payable to which it was before the change. So they would be more productive and paying the workers the same in the long run. And in turn, the workers are in better spirit due to the reduction in hours, which can really uplift a company. The men return to their toil in better heart after ampler rest, reinvigorated both in nerve and muscle, and make up in the result sometimes in part, sometimes wholly, by the intensity of their labor for the loss of its duration (Rae, 1892: 33).
What would the working man do in this extra free time that he has been given because of this accomplishment? What did they do after they came home after working 10-14 hours a day? “Possibly visit the nearest tavern and drink his sorrows away or get the much-needed rest only to have to be back in for work five hours later. The general opinion in Victoria is that the habits of working men have improved and not deteriorated through the short hours. By leaving work early in the afternoon, they are enabled to live out in the suburbs in neat cottages with little gardens behind them, which are almost invariably owned by their occupiers, and they spend much of their leisure time tending their little gardens or in some out-door sport or with their families” (Rae, 1892: 38). So due to the effect the change had on the workers, physically and mentally, they ended up not wasting the time away like they did before, but spent the time more productively with their families or enjoying their hobbies. “With a longer evening at their disposal, it became worth while devising other ways of enjoying it, and the favorite among the English factory hands seemed to be the mechanics’ institute in winter and the garden allotment in summer” (Rae, 1892: 39).
“This was a world first which spurred on other workers to organize and campaign for improved conditions of work” (Victorian Trades Hall Council, 2001). Culturally, this celebration is very important to not only the people of the Victoria state, but Australia in general. It is important to recognize the movement that your country has started that moved not only across the whole country, but also to most of the world. To show that your culture organized this movement which helped the workers in more ways than one, and also is helping workers across the world.